This member of the family Bruniaceae differs from that previously figured (Brunia Stokoei, Plate 92) in having a tubular corolla. In this respect it is also unique in the family. The genus is a small one, comprising only four known species.
Ecklon and Zeyher collected this plant in the Palmiet River Valley, and since then it has not been recorded until recently, when Mr. T. P. Stokoe gathered it in the same locality. He sent fresh specimens to the Division of Botany, and from these the plate was made.
Lonchostoma monostylis is a graceful plant with long, thin, erect stems, at the apex of which the flowers are borne.
Description:—Stems simple or sometimes branched above, 40 to 50 cm. long, almost woolly, at length becoming glabrous. Leaves erect, adpressed to the branches and almost hiding them, 5 to 6 mm. long, 1·5 to 2 mm. broad, elliptic, obtuse, with a small black mucro, concave, pubescent without, glabrous within, long ciliate. Flower-heads terminal, 1·3 cm. in diameter, about 14-flowered. Bracteoles 5 mm. long, 1 mm. broad at the base, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, with a long black mucro, membranous long pilose and ciliate. Sepals similar to the bracteoles. Corolla-tube, 3 mm. long, glabrous; lobes 6 mm. long, 3 to 3·5 mm. broad, obovate, shortly acuminate, obtuse. Anthers subsessile, 1·5 mm. long, linear, sagittate at the base. Ovary 1 mm. long, globose, pilose; style 2 mm. long, terete, glabrous; stigma minutely bifid. (National Herb. Pretoria, No. 2600.)
[Plate 118.]—Fig. 1, corolla laid open; 2, bract and bracteole; 3, leaf and calyx; 4, anther; 5, pistil; 6, cross-section of ovary.
F.P.S.A., 1923.