Plate 185.
Reading edition
PROTEA Mundii. Cape Province. Proteaceae. Tribe Proteae. Protea, Linn.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant. vol. iii. p. 169.
Protea Mundii, Klotz in Otto and Dietr. Garten-Zeit. 1838, 113; Fl. Cap. vol. v. sect. i. p. 579.
The species of Protea figured on the accompanying Plate represents a member of the section Exertae of the genus. This section comprises four species which may be readily recognised by the fact that in the mature head the perianth is spirally coiled in the open flowers, leaving the style exserted. Protea Mundii is closely related to another species found in the same localities, viz. P. lacticolor, Salisb., and the two were confused by E. Meyer, who named them both P. penicillata. As will be seen from the illustration, the stigma is very distinctly capitate at the apex, and as this character is unique in the genus the species can be easily recognised.
The plant is found in the mountains round Worcester, extends into the George, Knysna and Humansdorp Districts, and then passes through Uitenhage and Stutterheim into the Transkei.
The specimens were collected by Dr. I. B. Pole Evans, C.M.G., in the George District in July 1925.
Description:—Branches tomentellous to tomentose above. Leaves 4 to 11 cm. long, 1·2 to 3·2 cm. broad, lanceolate or lanceolate-elliptic, subobtuse, narrowing at the base, distinctly veined, glabrous or the youngest leaves sometimes loosely pilose. Head sessile, 7 to 8 cm. long, about 5 cm. in diam. Involucral-bracts 11-12-seriate; outer ovate, obtuse, silky on the back, green, ciliate; inner oblong or spathulate-oblong, whitish pubescent to tomentose, fringed with white cilia, shorter than the styles; perianth-sheath 4 cm. long, slender and thin above the middle, gradually dilated and 5-nerved below, not keeled, the upper half at length coiled up, loosely hairy; lip 1·5 cm. long, tridentate, glabrous, with a dense tuft of hairs at the apex; lateral teeth 2 mm. long; median tooth 1·5 mm. long; stamens all fertile; filaments 1 mm. long, channelled down the middle; anthers linear, 6 mm. long; apical glands 0·5 mm. long, ovate, subacuminate, subacute, keeled on the inner face; ovary covered with a tuft of long brown hairs; style 5 cm. long, almost straight, keeled on one side, compressed above the ovary, then more or less terete, glabrous; stigma 6 mm. long, furrowed, subcapitate at the apex, abruptly and obliquely passing into the much stouter style. (National Herb., Pretoria, No. 2918.)
Plate 185.—Fig. 1, single flower; Fig. 2, receptacle.
F.P.S.A., 1925.
