PLATE 200.
Reading edition
DIMORPHOTHECA CUNEATA. Cape Province, Natal, Orange Free State. Compositae. Tribe Calenduleae. Dimorphotheca, Moench.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant. vol. ii. p. 453.
Dimorphotheca cuneata, Less. Syn. 257; Fl. Cap. vol. iii. p. 422.
We are indebted for the specimens, from which the accompanying Plate was prepared, to Mr. C. A. Smith, B.Sc., who collected them in September 1925 on the botanical reserve near Fauresmith, Orange Free State. According to Mr. Smith the plants cover the hill-sides and from a distance appear as large white patches. It flowers very profusely, so much so that the leaves are almost hidden by the mass of flowers. The laminae of the ray-florets are white above and copper-coloured beneath, not yellow as described in the Flora Capensis.
The specimens collected by Mr. Smith are an exact match with those collected by Zeyher (No. 2812). Zeyher No. 3066, quoted by Harvey as D. cuneata, is quite a different plant, perhaps a Tripteris. We have accepted the specific name “cuneata,” as this was the name given by Mr. N. E. Brown to a specimen collected by Mr. E. E. Galpin. Locally known as “mak-bietou.”
Description:—A densely and closely branched bushy shrub up to 1·05 m. high, the older branches naked, rough, the younger short and closely leafy. Leaves varying in shape (linear to obovate) and size (0·5 to 1·3 cm. long), always cuneate at the base, sharply 2 to 4 toothed, obscurely mid-ribbed, gland-dotted, subdecurrent, glabrous or nearly so. Peduncles terminal, 2 to 3·5 cm. long, glandular-pubescent, viscidulous, becoming widened at the top. Involucre uni-seriate, glaucescent, viscidulous; scales linear-acuminate, minutely glandular-puberulous, with pale-edged and ciliate margins. Receptacle about 3·5 mm. in diam., nude, flat. Ray-florets female, uniseriate. Corolla ligulate, white above, yellow to bronze-coppery below; lamina spreading, finely-three toothed, cuneate at the base; tube of corolla 1·5 mm. long, terete, glandular-hairy. Ovary triquetrous, green, obconic, somewhat curved, glandular hairy with stalked glands, with the angular margins bluntly toothed; style 4·5 mm. long, cylindric, glabrous; branches 2 mm. long, yellow, flat, subacute. Disc-florets hermaphrodite, fertile. Corolla-tube yellow, 3 mm. long, subcylindric, with a 5-fid limb, very densely glandular-hairy at the base, glabrous above. Anthers 3 mm. long, subsagittate at the base, with an ovate obtuse apical appendage. Ovary very much laterally compressed, obcordate, glandular, with a wide thick-rimmed entire marginal wing; style 6 mm. long, cylindric, glabrous; branches appearing truncate with a ring of bristles, capped by a short conical apex. (National Herb., Pretoria, No. 2990.)
Plate 200.—Fig. 1, ray-floret; Fig. 2, ray-achene; Fig. 3, disc-floret; Fig. 4, disc-achene; Fig. 5, stamen.
F.P.S.A., 1925.