Plate 198.
Reading edition
VENIDIUM Wyleyi. Little Namaqualand. Compositae. Tribe Arctotideae. Venidium, Less.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant, vol. ii. p. 459.
Venidium Wyleyi, Harv. Fl. Cap. vol. iii. p. 463.
This Plate, and that on Plate 117, should be compared with Arctotis Fosteri which we figured on Plate 3, when the difference between the genera Venidium and Arctotis will be seen. In the former genus the fruits are without a pappus or with a very rudimentary one, while in the latter genus a well-developed pappus is always present.
The plant is commonly known as the “Namaqua Daisy,” and in its native home the flower-heads attain a very large size when the season is favourable, but may be quite small when no rain has fallen. Venidium Wyleyi does quite well under cultivation, and is easily grown and forms a very effective border.
We are indebted to Mr. L. R. Vogt of Waterkloof near Pretoria for the specimens, which were grown in his garden.
Description:—An erect herb. Stems terete, hollow, striate, pilose-hoary, laxly leafy. Cauline leaves 1·2 to 15 cm. long, sessile; the lower lyrato-pinnatifid, amply auricled, amplexicaul, on both sides cobwebby-tomentose; the upper broadly ovate, closely crowded in the young stems, cobwebby-tomentose, obtuse, with the margins entire or remotely 1 to 2 toothed. Heads peduncled, terminal, very large and showy, 8 cm. in diam. (including the rays), the buds very hoary. Involucral bracts imbricate, in several rows; the outer narrower, reflexed, herbaceous, green; the innermost row much longer, broadly scariose, spreading below the rays; the whole involucre densely cobwebby. Receptacle 1·8 cm. in diam., convex, deeply honeycombed, with the margins of the cells produced into a few bristles. Ray-florets female, 1-seriate, alternate rays spreading, others at first ascending, then spreading, giving an appearance of two rows. Corolla ligulate; lamina bright orange coloured, oblong-cuneate, very faintly 3-toothed at apex, of lower whorl smaller (2·5 cm. long) and with a smaller brow-black blotch at the base than that of upper whorl (3 cm. long); tube 3 mm. long, broader at base than at the top, subglabrous. Ovary obovate in outline, muricated, glabrous; style 4 mm. long, cylindric, glabrous; stigmatic portion wider, with the branches 0·5 mm. long, linear, flat, spreading. Disc-florets hermaphrodite, fertile, numerous, crowded on the head. Corolla 4 mm. long, subcylindric, 5-cleft at the apex for about a quarter the length of the tube, with 5 longitudinal rows of glandular hairs; lobes blackish, 1 mm. long, linear, subacute, with the angles between the lobes obtuse. Anthers purplish, black, 2 mm. long, obtuse, with a small suborbicular apical appendage; filaments 1·5 mm. long, linear, flat, at length filiform, inserted on lower half of corolla tube. Ovary obovate in outline, white, muricated, glabrous; style 5·5 mm. long, at first narrowly cylindric, then in upper half abruptly widening into a yellow stigmatic portion, 2 mm. long, slightly cleft at the apex, becoming much exserted. (National Herb., Pretoria, No. 2944.)
Plate 198.—Fig. 1, longitudinal section of receptacle; Fig. 2, ray-floret; Fig. 3, disc-floret; Fig. 4, inner involucral-bract; Fig. 5, outer involucral-bract; Fig. 6, achene.
F.P.S.A., 1923.
