  CEROPEGIA Rendallii. Transvaal. Asclepiadaceae. Tribe Ceropegieae. Ceropegia, Linn.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant. vol. ii. p. 779. Ceropegia Rendallii, N.E. Br. in Kew Bull., 1894, p. 100; Fl. Cap. vol. iv. sect. 1, p. 814. An exceedingly quaint and graceful little plant, and an acquisition to the greenhouse. Our illustration was made from a specimen collected by Dr. Ethel M. Doidge at Onderstepoort, near Pretoria, and grown at the Division of Botany. The locality is a new record for the species as hitherto it had only been known from the Barberton and Lydenburg Districts. The claw of the petal-lobes are united into a single column in the young flowers but in the older flowers become separated. The species was first described by Mr. N. E. Brown, in 1894, and is now figured for the first time. Description:—Rootstock a flattened tuber, 2·5 cm. in diameter. Stem twining, slender, glabrous. Leaves 1·2-2·5 cm. long, 5-8 mm. broad, linear or linear-oblong, somewhat fleshy, apiculate, glabrous, sometimes with a slight ciliation on the margins. Peduncles 1·5-2 cm. long, slender, with 2 small bracts about the middle, 1-3 flowered. Sepals subulate. Corolla-tube 2 cm. long, globose at the base, contracted into a funnel-shaped tube much dilated at the throat; lobes united into an umbrella-shaped canopy supported on claws about 5 mm. long. Outer-corona about 1 mm. long, of 5 small pocket-like lobes, truncate at the top or rising into a minute deltoid point at the dorsal angle, inner coronal-lobes about 1 mm. long, falcate, recurved. Follicles about 10 cm. long, 3 mm. in diameter, terete, tapering from about the middle to a slightly Plate 39.—Fig. 1, plant, natural size; Fig. 2, flower; Fig. 3, canopy in fully-opened flower seen from above; Fig. 4, side view of canopy in bud; Fig. 5, canopy in bud seen from above; Fig. 6, corona; Fig. 7, follicles. F.P.S.A., 1921. [Image unavailable.] 40. K. A. Lansdell del. SARCOCAULON RIGIDUM, SCHINZ. |
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