Volume 1
Catalogue of the African plants collected by Dr. Friedrich Welwitsch in 1853-61.
- British Museum (Natural History) Department of Botany
- Date:
- 1896-1901
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Catalogue of the African plants collected by Dr. Friedrich Welwitsch in 1853-61. Source: Wellcome Collection.
85/392 page 53
![Portidaca] Forma pendula Wehv. ms. in Herb. Stem U to 4 ft. long or more, smooth, persisting for several years, pendulous, brittle, cylindrical, rose-purple, glassy ; nodes more distant than in the type ; leaves oblong-lanceolate, rather thick, glaucous-green, densely bearded in the axils ; calyx very deeply bilobed membranous- whitish, surrounded with whitish pilose hairs, involucred by the leaves ; petals 4, yellow, elongate-ovate, cruciately opposite, rather obtuse but mucronate, quickly marcescent; stamens 12, shorter than the petals ; filaments filiform, bifariously bearded; stigmas 4, linear, * in. long, deflexed. Loanda.—By dampish densely bushy rocks to the east of Loanda, near Boa Yista, fl. and fr. Feb. 1854. No. 11005. The following has been doubtfully referred to this species by Oliver, l.c. :— Mossamedes.—A small fleshy perennial herb, root fusiform, stems short, succulent, purple, prostrate-ascending, pilose at the nodes ; cap- sule as in the genus. Sporadic in bushy places near red-sandy rocks by the river Bero, at Boca do Rio Bero, fr. July 1859. No. 1108. 4. P. saxifragoides Welw. ex Oliv. Fl. Trop. Afr. i. p. 149. Pungo Andongo.—A little herb, with the habit of Saxifraga biflora All. or of S. oppositifolia L., 1 to 2 or occasionally 3 in. high ; annual ? or perhaps lasting for several years by means of its fleshy rather thick simple rhizome, which is divaricately fibrous towards its apex ; stems small, cylindrical, fleshy, purple, brittle, several and prostrate-ascending from the apex of the rhizome, the younger ones densely leafy, with distant branches ; leaves exactly opposite, sessile, ovate or ovate- lanceolate, fleshy, flat-convex, rather obtuse (almost as in Seclum dasyphyllum L.), TV toj in. long, succulent, glaucous-green, greenish- purplish in the living state, very densely villous at the axils, with the hairs conglomerated and but little conspicuous on the living plant but spreading and exceeding the leaves on the dried plant; internodes to \ in. long, the uppermost ones shorter ; flowers crowded in a capitate manner at the apex of the stems and branches, involucrate there with the ovate-lanceolate crowded leaves, milk-white, J to | in. long, tubular- campanulate ; calyx white, tubular at the base, sessile, bifid, with elongate-ovate concave obtuse lobes, reaching one third the height of the corolla ; corolla gamopetalous from the base to near the middle, tubular below with 4 obtuse lobes and slightly spreading limb; stamens 4, alternating with the corolla-lobes and inserted a little below their base, erect, included ; filaments very slender ; anthers elongate-oblong, with 2 linear cells ; style filiform, equalling the corolla, rather deeply bifid at the apex, with the lobes stigmatose on the internal face; capsule concealed by the leaves of the involucre, subsessile, spherical-conical, shining, narrowly mammillate at the apex with a conical opening ; seeds few, orbicular-subreniform, occasionally rather compressed, black, glossy, delicately punctulate. In the elevated rocky parts of the mountains called Pedras de Guinga, among short and scanty herbage, rare and seen in only one locality ; fl. and fr. March 5. P. sedoides Welw. ex Oliv. Fl. Trop. Afr. i. p. 149. Pi,no° Andongo.—A dwarf annual herb, 1 to 2 in. high, almost f iec*-purplish, with the habit of a Seclum or a Cochlearia or often i , ta fontuna L. ; stems erect or ascending, dichotomous or tri omous , leaves opposite, fleshy, papillose-striate (as well as the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28120486_0001_0087.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
