Our Plate represents a variety of Nerine flexuosa found in the Transvaal, which is distinguished from the type in having a more robust inflorescence. It very much resembles N. lucida, figured on Plate 134, but the peduncle is much longer and not so stout. Very little is known about this variety. It is recorded in the Flora Capensis as collected by Sanderson in the Transvaal, and does not appear to have been found again by any recent collector. When planted in a mass it makes a very effective display as soon as the flowers appear.
The plants from which this Plate was prepared were grown at the Division of Botany, Pretoria, but no information is available as to where the bulbs originally came from.
Description:—Bulb globose, 7 cm. in diameter. Leaves about 7, 30 cm. long, 2·7 cm. broad, strap-shaped, usually twisted. Umbel about 25-flowered. Peduncle up to 40 cm. long, elliptic in cross-section. Pedicels up to 7 cm. long, slender. Spathe-valves 4 cm. long, ovate, acuminate. Perianth-segments about 4 cm. long, crisped in the upper half. Stamens declinate; filaments almost as long as the perianth-segments. Ovary globose, obtusely 3-angled; style declinate, as long as the filaments; stigma simple.[{80}]
Plate 139.—Fig. 1, bulb; Fig. 2, leaf; Fig. 3, cross-section of peduncle; Fig. 4, median longitudinal section of a flower; Fig. 5, upper portion of perianth-segment, showing tuft of papillose hairs.
F.P.S.A., 1924.
