Volume 3

Catalogue of the African plants collected by Dr. Friedrich Welwitsch in 1853-61.

  • British Museum (Natural History). Department of Botany.
Date:
1896-1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Catalogue of the African plants collected by Dr. Friedrich Welwitsch in 1853-61. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    20/304 (page 524)
    subsessile base, green on both faces, rather paler beneath, membranous, rigid, scabrid, not pubescent, marked with minute impressed pellucid points, 1 to 2-J- in. long by \ to in. broad; margin narrowly revolute, entire or rough with a few short prickles; internodes shorter than the leaves; capitula cam- panulate-hemispherical, ]■ to ^ in. in diameter, several-flowered, subsessile on the branches of the cyme or on scabrid angular rather slender rigid pedicels ranging up to an inch long, arranged in a compound bracteate (or somewhat leafy) terminal corymbose panicle about 4 in. in diameter; bracts like the leaves but smaller; involucral scales pluriseriate oblong, oblanceolate or linear, obtuse, somewhat pale-cottony outside, unequal, ranging up to i in. long, more or less straw-coloured below, dark or purplish and often quasi-appendicular towards the apex, the lower ones often subapiculate; corollas purple, rather more than i in. long, narrowly tubular, gradually and not much widened upwards, with 5 linear-lanceolate sub-acute lobes; anther-tube acutely sagittate at the base and with lanceolate appendages at the apex; style-branches puberulous, tapering, shortly exserted at the apex; achenes ob-pyramidal, ~ in- long, about 6-ribbed, scattered with small glands and short hairs; pappus slightly straw-coloured, biseriate; the outer setae short, the inner £ in. long, nearly smooth. Huilla.—In the wooded meadows (varzeas) of Catumba towards Hay ; fl. and fr. April 1860. No. 3364. 22. V. catumbensis Hiern, sp. n. An undershrub, 4 ft. high or more; stem densely leafy below, divaricately branched above ; branches elongated, purple, sulcate- striate, terete, somewhat pubescent with whitish curly hairs; leaves oblong, more or less obtuse at both ends, subapiculate at the apex, rounded at the sessile or subsessile base, thinly sub- coriaceous, yellowish-green, paler beneath, somewhat pubescent sometimes obsoletely so on both faces especially beneath by side of or along the midrib and principal veins, denticulate repand or Subentire, 1 jy to 4-§- in. long by -j- to 1-j- in. broad; lateral veins not sonspicuous; capitula campanulate, somewhat turbinate, in. in diameter, mostly sessile and unilateral on the branches of the cyme, some on somewhat woolly pedicels ranging up to §■ in. long, arranged in rather open terminal and axillary corymbose or paniculate cymes; bracts like the leaves but smaller, in- volucral scales more or less woolly outside, pluriseriate, obtuse, minutely apiculate, with scarious margins and purple tips, thick and tough in other parts, the outermost ones very short, the inner continually longer, the innermost lanceolate-oblong ^ in. long, persistent; flowers purple, about 18 together in a capitulum; corollas f in. long, gradually widened above the middle, 5-cleft; the lobes’ lanceolate-oblong, cohering about the _ middle, sub- obtuse ; anthers obtusely tailed at the base, with lanceolate appendages at the apex; style-branches exserted, hispidulous,