Mrs. Bolus remarks, “Distinguished from the rest of the section ‘Eu-Watsonia’ by the more slender habit, the smaller spathe-valves, the shorter perianth-tube and relatively long segments.”
PLATE 45.--Fig. 1, flower, perianth laid open; Fig. 2, portion of fruiting spike; Fig. 3, capsule, dehisced, about natural size; Fig. 4, seed × 2.
MASSONIA, _Thunb._; _Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant._ vol. iii. p. 806.
=Massonia latifolia=, _Linn. fil._ Suppl. 193; _Fl. Cap._ vol. vi. p. 416.
All the species of _Massonia_, an endemic Cape genus of the _Liliaceae_, have fragrant hyacinthoid flowers, arising in a sessile cluster from between two broad prostrate leaves. The name was given to the genus by Carl Thunberg to commemorate the name of Francis Masson, who was sent to the Cape in 1772 as collector for the Royal Gardens at Kew, and who was responsible for introducing a large number of Cape plants into cultivation. The first 20 volumes of Curtis’s _Botanical Magazine_, which contain 786 plates, have nearly one-third devoted to figures of Cape species, mostly sent to Kew Gardens by Masson.
The genus _Massonia_ is very imperfectly known, as about 24 out of the 33 species described in the “Flora Capensis” have never been collected within the last 50 years, or are only known from figures in botanical publications. It is, therefore, with some pleasure that we publish our first plate representing a species of the genus, collected by Mrs. E. Rood, of Van Rhynsdorp, in the hope that it may stimulate others to forward specimens to the Division of Botany, Pretoria, for illustration in future numbers of this work.
This particular species was figured by Jacquin in 1803. Specimens are preserved in the National Herbarium, Pretoria (Herb. No. 1450).
DESCRIPTION:--_Bulb_ 3·5 cm. long, 3 cm. broad, ovoid-ellipsoid, with brown membranous tunics. _Leaves_ 2, lying flat on the ground, somewhat fleshy, 12 cm. long, 14·5 cm. broad, somewhat orbicular, narrowed and channelled at the base, glabrous. _Inflorescence_ an abbreviated raceme. _Bracts_ 3·5 cm. long, 1 cm. broad, lanceolate, acuminate, acute, about 5-nerved, glabrous. _Pedicels_ 6 mm. long, 4 mm. broad, fleshy. _Perianth-tube_ 7 mm. long, 6 mm. in diameter at the throat; lobes 1·2 mm. long, 4 mm. broad, oblong, minutely tufted at the apex, membranous. _Filaments_ inserted at mouth of perianth-tube, 1·4 cm. long, ovate and connate at the base, becoming linear above; anthers 3 mm. long, linear, versatile. _Ovary_ 5 mm. long, 7 mm. in diameter above, obovoid; style 2 cm. long, subterete; stigma simple.