Plate 188.
Reading edition
DERMATOBOTRYS Saundersii. Cape Province, Natal. Scrophulariaceae. Dermatobotrys, Bolus in Hook. Ic. Pl. 1940.
Dermatobotrys Saundersii, Bolus in Hook. Ic. Pl. Zwilt’s 1940; Fl. Cap. vol. iv. sect. ii. p. 206.
This interesting member of the Scrophulariaceae is peculiar in that it grows as an epiphyte on other trees. Miss Pegler records it from the Kentani District as growing on the Cape Chestnut (Calodendron capense). It ranges from Kentani to Zululand. It differs also from most members of the family in having 5 well-developed stamens, and for this reason was first referred to the family Solanaceae, but the straight or almost straight embryo indicates an affinity with the family Scrophulariaceae.
Mr. Saunders, who first collected the plant, described it as a parasite which killed the host on which it grew, but the late Dr. Medley Wood states that the plant has a tendency to fix itself to trees already dead.
We are indebted to Mr. K. B. Jameson, Scottsville, Maritzburg, for the specimen from which our illustration was prepared.
Description:—A glabrous epiphytic shrub; root-stock 1·25 m. high, about 1 cm. thick but increasing towards the top to 5 cm., furrowed transversely as in a Dahlia root; rootlets fibrous; stems more or less quadrangular; ultimate branchlets 1·5 to 3 mm. thick. Leaves opposite, decussate, ovate or elliptical, acute or broadly pointed at the apex, more or less narrowed at the entire base, strongly toothed or repand-dentate, fleshy, red-veined, turning black-green in the dried state, 5 to 15 cm. long, 2·5 to 9 cm. broad; petioles 1 to 5 cm. long. Flowers clustered at the nodes on the branchlets, usually three together, bracteate at the base, about 4 cm. long; peduncles 1 to 3 mm. long, spreading; bract elliptic-linear, acute at both ends, about 2 cm. long, 5 mm. broad; calyx-segments lanceolate, acute, glabrous, 3 to 5 mm. long. Corolla red; tube beset inside towards the base with stiff broad white hairs; lobes about 5 mm. long; anthers glabrous; style glabrous, slender, tapering towards the stigma. Ovary ovoid-conical, glabrous; ripe berry ovoid, blunt, smooth, about 2 cm. long, 1·8 cm. broad, green; embryo about 1/3 to 3/4 of the seed in length. (National Herb., Pretoria, No. 2917.)
Plate 188.—Fig. 1, single flower; Fig. 2, median longitudinal section of flower; Fig. 3, pistil.
F.P.S.A., 1925.
