The home of this remarkable plant was unknown to botanists until re-discovered in 1920. It grows in heavy red clay soil on the farm Fransplaas, about 40 miles north of Sutherland, and flowers in September.
The genus was named by Dr. Lindley in honour of Dr. Charles Daubeny, Professor of Botany at Oxford, “whose interesting researches in vegetable Chemistry have materially conduced to improve our knowledge of the physiology of plants.”
Specimens are preserved in the National Herbarium, Pretoria (Herb. No. 1458).
DESCRIPTION:--An acaulescent herbaceous plant. _Bulb_ 1·6 cm. long, 1·9 cm. in diameter, covered with brown membranous tunics with numerous fibrous roots from the base. _Leaves_ 2, flat, 5-8 cm. long, 4-5 cm. broad, ovate, subacuminate, obtuse, narrowed and clasping at the base, many-nerved, with margins narrowly membranous. _Capitulum_ about 10-flowered, with a peduncle 3 cm. long, clasped by the leaf base and beneath the soil. _Outer bracts_ white, membranous, 2·7 cm. long, 1·6 cm. broad, oblong; inner bracts 2·5 cm. long, 9 mm. broad, obovate-spathulate, entire, clasping the perianth-tube. _Pedicels_ 5 mm. long, 3 mm. broad, compressed, fleshy. _The outer flowers_ 2-lipped and differently shaped from the inner. _Perianth-tube_ of outer flowers 2 cm. long, 4 mm. in diameter, somewhat compressed; lobes of lower lip 2·6 cm. long; the middle lobe 1·4 cm. broad; the 2 side lobes 1 cm. broad; all obovate-oblong, obtuse; lobes of upper lip 3 mm. long, 1 mm. broad, linear. _Perianth-lobes_ of inner flowers 3-6 mm. long, all linear or lanceolate. _Stamens_ inserted at different levels; filaments 3-6 mm. long, terete, fleshy, tapering upwards; anthers 2 mm. long, oblong. _Ovary_ 7 mm. long, 2·5 mm. in diameter, narrowly ellipsoid, glabrous; style 2·5 cm. long, terete, with 3 minute stigmas at the apex.
PLATE 71.--Fig. 1, plant viewed from above; Fig. 2, plant, side view; Fig. 3, a single flower; Fig. 4, side view of flower of outer whorl; Fig. 5, flower from middle of inflorescence; Fig. 6, the same flower viewed from above, showing the stamens and style; Fig. 7, bract.
STAPELIA, _Linn._; _Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant._ vol. ii. p. 784.
=Stapelia Pillansii=, _N. E. Br._, _var._ =attenuata=, _N. E. Br._ in _Fl. Cap._ vol. iv. sect. i. p. 958.