Our plate was made from a fresh specimen bought in Cape Town by Mr. T. P. Stokoe.
DESCRIPTION:--An erect shrub, 6-8 ft. high. _Branches_ pilose with long hairs. _Leaves_ 1-2¼ in. long, ¾-1¼ in. broad, slightly imbricate, obovate or oblanceolate-spathulate, with a very obtuse blackish apex, slightly narrowing at the base, or rarely the upper leaves attenuated, distinctly 5-6 nerved, rigidly sub-coriaceous, densely ciliate when young, otherwise glabrous or more or less scantily pilose. _Heads_ sessile, 2-2½ in. long, many-flowered. _Involucral bracts_ petaloid, 4-5-seriate, 1¾-2 in. long, 4-12 lin. broad, spathulate-oblong, rounded at the apex, many-nerved, membranous, pilose, ciliate, rose-red, the outermost densely shaggy-pilose. _Perianth-tube_ 3 lin. long, cylindric, pubescent; segments lemon-yellow, 1¼ in. long, linear, pilose; limb 4 lin. long, linear scantily pilose. _Filaments_ swollen, fused with the perianth; anthers 3½ lin. long, linear, with an ovate obtuse apical gland ¼ lin. long. _Hypogynous scales_ 5-6 lin. long, linear, obtuse, brown. _Style_ 1¾ in. long, grooved, glabrous; stigma 3½ lin. long, grooved, obtuse; ovary 1 lin. long, globose. Fruit 3 lin. long, oblong, smooth and shining (ex. _Flora Capensis_).
PLATE 38.--Fig. 1, portion of plant, natural size; Fig. 2, a single flower; Fig. 3, upper portion of a perianth-lobe showing a stamen; Fig. 4, apex of style.
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 dilated apex, glabrous, greenish or irregularly striped with rupple-red.