Description:—Stem succulent, twining or scrambling, leafless at the time of flowering, glabrous. Leaves only seen at the young tips of the stems, soon deciduous, minute, 2 to 2·5 mm. long, lanceolate, acute, glabrous. Flowers 2 to 4 together at the nodes, successively developed; pedicels 0·6 to 1·3 cm. long, glabrous. Sepals 2 to 3 mm. long, lanceolate, acuminate, glabrous. Corolla-tube in dried specimens 2·5 to 5 cm. long, 0·8 to 1·2 cm. in diameter, cylindric and slightly or not at all inflated at the base, but on the living plant, according to a drawing, 5 cm. long, globosely and somewhat lobulate-inflated and about 2·5 cm. in diameter at the base, cylindric and 1·3 cm. in diameter above, not dilated at the apex, pale green, with a narrow purple transverse band at[{84}] the top of the inflation inside, glabrous outside, covered inside with long simple hairs, longer and more matted at the purple band and above than in the lower part; lobes 0·8 to 1·2 cm. long, 5 to 6 mm. broad at the base, lanceolate from a deltoid base, acute, erectly connivent and connate at the tips, replicate or with reflexed margins, glabrous on both sides and not ciliate, green, spotted with darker green, becoming olive-brown when dried, probably with a velvety sheen on the inner surface; outer corona cup-shaped, equally 10-toothed; teeth about 1 mm. long, narrowly deltoid, acute, hairy on the inner surface; inner corona-lobes 4 to 5 mm. long, very slenderly filiform, connivent-erect, dorsally-connected by vertical plates to the outer corona at the base. (Flora Capensis.)
Plate 140.—Fig. 1, corolla laid open; Fig. 2, outer and inner corona, showing the pollinia; Fig. 3, pollinia.
F.P.S.A., 1924.
