Plate 177.
Reading edition
PROTEA PITYPHYLLA. Cape Province. Proteaceae. Tribe Proteae. Protea, Linn.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant. vol. iii. p. 169.
Protea pityphylla, Phillips in Kew Bulletin, 1910, 234; Fl. Cap. vol. v. sect. i. p. 594.
We have pleasure in showing for the first time this species of Protea, hitherto not figured in botanical publications. On a previous occasion we published an illustration of a broad-leaved variety, P. pityphylla, var. latifolia (see Plate 108). Another variety with short leaves resembling those of P. rosacea has been collected in the Ronde Bokkeveld, but it may be at once distinguished from this species by the foliaceous appendages of the outer bracts.
The late Dr. MacOwan distributed the species as a “sp. nov.” in 1888, and it is only within recent years that it has been at all largely collected.
The species has been successfully cultivated at the National Botanic Gardens, Kirstenbosch, and is well worth the attention of gardeners interested in plants typically South African.
Our plate was prepared from specimens presented by Dr. R. Marloth.
Description:—Branches glabrous; leaves 6 to 8 cm. long, about 1 mm. wide, needle-shaped, acute, pungent, channelled and prominently costate on the upper face, glabrous. Head, sessile, 4 to 4·5 cm. long, about 6·5 cm. in diameter, cernuous. Involucral-bracts 7-seriate, glabrous; outer ovate, acuminate, obtuse or acute, the lowest produced into long foliaceous appendages resembling the leaves, inner oblong, slightly concave, exceeding the flowers. Perianth-sheath 1·5 cm. long, dilated, 3-keeled and 7-nerved below, scarious, rufously setulose within in the upper part, otherwise glabrous; lip 5 mm. long, 3-toothed, 3-keeled, setose below; teeth subequal, 0·5 mm. long. Stamens all fertile; filaments 0·5 mm. long, dilated, concave; anthers oblong-linear, 3 mm. long, apical glands 0·25 mm. long, ovate, subacute, somewhat swollen on the inner face. Ovary 2 mm. long, obovate-oblong, covered with long reddish-yellow hairs; hypogynous scales 1 mm. long, oval-oblong; style up to 2·2 cm. long, widened and much compressed from the base upwards for 6 mm., then much constricted and strongly bent and subulate, the slender portion obliquely arching inwards, glabrous: stigma 3 mm. long, obtuse (Flora Capensis).
Plate 177.—Fig. 1, single flower; Fig. 2, single flower opened; Fig. 3, lip of perianth-segments showing the three stamens; Fig. 4, receptacle.
F.P.S.A., 1925.
