Acokanthera oppositifolia

http://www.huntingtonbotanical.org/WhatsInBloom/april07/Page4.html

Acokanthera oppositifolia (Lam.) Codd, Bothalia 7: 448 (1961).

APOCYNACEAE

Cordyline indivisa

Cordyline indivisa Steud.
Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, No.9096, Volume 151, 1926.

Sorting Cordylines

The botanists view:

Cordyline australis (G. Forst.) Endl.
SYNONYM(S) : Dracaena australis G. Forst.

That is straight forward enough. But what about:

Cordyline indivisa (G. Forst.) Steud.
SYNONYM(S) : Dracaena indivisa G. Forst., Terminalis indivisa (G. Forst.) Kuntze

Garden names:
The name Dracaena indivisa hort. was used almost exclusively in the nineteenth century (and even today) for Cordyline australis. This is from a website selling seeds of the true Cordyline indivisa :

Cordyline indivisa
Do not confuse this plant with the common Dracaena indivisa a.k.a. Cordyline australis of the plant trade. While the C. australis is commonly grown in mild temperate areas all over the world, the true C. indivisa is a rare and beautiful high altitude species from New Zealand. It is a tall and majestic plant with long leaves that can reach a width of more than 10 cm (4 in.), and in young plants are tinted yellow and orange. C. indivia prefers a moist, cool, even climate such as that of the Atlantic Coast in Europe or the Pacific Coast in the US and Canada.

It is unlikely that Cordyline indivisa was ever grown successfully at Monserrate despite the frequent references to Dracaena indivisa for example in 1885 & 1923.

However just in case here is the description:

Cordyline indivisa (G. Forst.) Steud.

Family: Laxmanniaceae. Also placed in: Agavaceae Asteliaceae Lomandraceae [GRIN Taxonomy for Plants] and of course old fashioned Liliaceae.

That's not very helpful, but reflects current flux and differences of opinion. The European Garden Flora places Cordyline in AGAVACEAE with the following comment: "A very troublesome family from the point of view of identification. Its separation from Liliaceae and the Amaryllidaceae is based, at least in part, on cytological, chemical and anatomical characters, and this makes a clear diagnosis of the family dificult to prepare." That was from my 1986 first edition and is by now itself quite old-fashioned. The family Laxmanniaceae is still not widely recognised, though New Zealand Botanists seem very keen, but then all the genera that are included within it are from the Pacific regions.

Asparagaceae seems to be the momentary consensus - Laxmanniaceae is admitted by APG II (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group; 2003) as an optional segregate from the family Asparagaceae.


Cordyline indivisa (G.Forst.) Endl., Ann. Wiener Mus. Naturgesch. 1: 162 (1836).

Family:
Asparagaceae

Acokanthera oblongifolia

Acokanthera spectabilis Benth. in Gen. Plant, vol II p. 696
Curtis's Botanical Magazine Vol CIV Nº 6359 (1878)

Acokanthera oblongifolia (Hochst.) Codd
Bothalia 7: 449. 1961
APOCYNACEAE

Basionym: Carissa oblongifolia Hochst. Flora 27(2): 827. 1844.

Synonym: Acokanthera spectabilis (Sond.) Hook. f.


FZ, Vol 7 Part 2 Author: A. J. M. Leeuwenberg and F. K. Kupicha et al.
Evergreen shrub or small tree up to 6 m. high. Young branches glabrous, conspicuously angled and ribbed. Leaves coriaceous, glabrous, smooth; petiole 4–9 mm. long; lamina 6–8·4 x 1·5–4·5 cm., ± elliptic, the apex obtuse to acute, mucronate, the base cuneate or rounded; upper surface glossy, with midrib shallowly impressed and lateral veins slightly raised but usually inconspicuous; lower surface mat, midrib and lateral veins raised but the latter inconspicuous; lateral veins looped to join their neighbours. Inflorescences dense contracted many-flowered axillary cymes; flowers fragrant, white tinged pink. Calyx c. 3 mm. long, lobes lanceolate, weakly imbricate, puberulous and ciliate. Corolla tube 14–20 mm. long, glabrous or pubescent on external surface, pilose within in upper half, faintly wrinkled below; corolla lobes broadly ovate with rounded apex, 3–7 mm. long, glabrous to pubescent, ciliate or not. Stamens inserted near the top of the corolla tube so that the anthers reach to within 1 mm. of the mouth and are not visible at anthesis; anthers 1·5–1·7 mm. long. Ovary c. 1 mm. long, cylindrical, longitudinally ribbed. Fruit 2–2·5 cm. long, ellipsoid or subglobose, purplish-black, 2(l)-seeded. Seeds up to 1·5 cm. long.



Aspecto general y detalle de flores y frutos
http://www.arbolesornamentales.com/


Tab. 6359
Acokanthera spectabilis
Curtis’s Botanical Magazine
May 1st 1878

Native of South Africa

Genus Acokanthera, Don; (Benth. Et Hook. F. Gen. Plant, vol. ii p. 696)

A. spectabilis
Toxicophlaea spectabilis, Sonder in Linnaea, vol. xxiii. P. 79;

The genus Acokanthera was founded by G. Don in the ‘Gardener’s Dictionary’ (vol. iv. P. 485) on Thunberg’s Cestrum veneatum (and other South African plants having no relation thereto), a native of Western South Africa. Subsequently, Harvey, overlooking Don’s genus, established Toxicophlaea on the same Cestrum venenatum, and his name is taken up by A. De Candolle in the Prodomus, and has consequently been current for that plant ever since ; subsequently, a congener was found in Abyssinia, the Carissa Schimperi, A.D.C. (C. Mepte Hochst., and Strychnos abyssinica, Hochst.), and finally the present plant was sent from South East Africa, and published as Toxicophlaea spectabilis by Sonder. The three known species are probably all of them very poisonous. A. veneata (Toxicophaea Thunbergii), Harvey, is the “Gift-boom,” or poison-tree of the Dutch and English colonists. According to Thunberg, a decoction of the bark reduced to a jelly was used by the Aborigines for poisoning their arrows ; and of the A. spectabilis, Mrs Barber writes that the seeds are intensely bitter, and the whole plant considered by the natives to be a deadly poisonous one. The genus is, as Mr. Dyer has remarked (Gard. Chron. l.c.), too closely allied to Carissa, differing chiefly, if not solely, in the want of thorns.

A. spectabilis is a native of the Western districts of South Africa, from Port Albany to Port Natal, where it forms a large shrub, with masses of white very fragrant flowers, on woody sand-hills near the sea. It was introduced by Mr. B S. Williams, and exhibited by him in 1872. Our specimen flowered at Kew in February of the present year.

DESCR. A large shrub, quite glabrous, except the inflorescence, which is slightly hairy or almost glabrous ; branches stout, green, obscurly angled. Leaves three to five inches long, narrowed into a very short thick petiole, coriaceous, elliptic- or oblong-lanceolate, acute, acuminate, or apiculate, shining above with very obscure spreading nerves, paler and opaque beneath. Flowers in dense fasiculated axillary branched short cymes, sometimes forming a globose head towards the top of the branch, pure white, very sweet scented ; peduncles and pedicels very short ; bracts minute, broadly ovate. Calyx-lobes ovate-lanceolate, green, subacute, hairy. Corolla-tube three quarters of an inch long, slender, slightly enlarged upwards, sparsly hairy in the throat ; lobes spreading, ovate-oblong, acute. Stamens included, inserted near the mouth of the corolla, filaments very short ; anthers braodly ovate, with a pubescent terminal claw. Stigma conical, hairy, emarginate. Ovules attached towards the base of the septum. --- J. D. H.

Fig. 1, Flower ; 2 calyx ; 3, vertical, and 4, transverse section of ovary ; 5, top of style and stigma; 6, stamens : - all enlarged.

Imantophyllum aitonii

Imantophyllum aitonii Hook.
Bot. Mag. 55: t. 2856. 1828

By perhaps not such an extraordinary coincidence two rival botanical magazines published different names for the same plant ON THE SAME DAY. Hooker's name Imantophyllum was for a long time preferred over Lindley's Clivia, which however eventually prevailed and gained precedence. Even so it was as Imantophyllum that these plants were first grown at Monserrate.

Hooker later wrote the following in a footnote:

It was unfortunate that that plate of I. Aitoni appeared on the same day on which the same plant was figured by Dr. Lindley in the ' Botanical Register' as Clivia nobilis. The name may, we think, thus with propriety be transferred to the present genus, a near ally of, but certainly distinct from, Clivia, Lindl.

This was in relation to Imantophyllum miniata, written in 1854, 26 years after the day on which both names had been published. Quite a grudge! Unfortunately for Hooker this new plant, was also later consigned to Lindley's genus and became Clivia miniata, the most widely grown and beautiful of these plants.

Clivia nobilis

Clivia nobilis Lindley
Botanical Register; consisting of coloured . . . 14: t. 1182. 1828.
Amaryllidaceae

This noble plant is supposed to have been one of the discoveries of Mr. Bowie at the Cape of Good Hope, from some of the inner districts of which colony it was probably procured. The plant from which our drawing was made, flowered for the second time in July last, in the princely Garden of his Grace the Duke of Northumberland, at Syon House, and was communicated to us by Mr. Forrest, to whom we are indebted for several observations upon its habit and characters.

At first sight it has so much the appearance of a Cyrtanthus that it may easily be mistaken for one, especially if the detached flowers only are seen. But upon a more minute examination, it will be found that it is not only not referable to that genus, but that it is actually doubtful whether it does not belong to a distinct natural order. In the 'first' place, it does not form a bulb, an almost indispensable character of Amaryllideae, from which there is but one other variation hitherto known, namely in Doryanthes. In the second place, the fruit is not a dehiscent dry capsule, but fleshy and indehiscent; and, thirdly, the seeds are not numerous, compressed, and membranous, but solitary, round, and fleshy. It is, therefore, obviously distinct from Cyrtanthus; and there is no other Amaryllideous genus to compare with it, except Eustephia, the fruit of which is still unknown, but which is peculiarly characterised by its 3-toothed filaments, and which is probably not far removed from Phycella. Perhaps the real affinity of this plant cannot at present be determined: to us it appears most closely allied to Haemanthus, the bulbs of which are very imperfect.

A greenhouse plant, not appearing to require particular care in its cultivation, and propagating either by seeds or suckers.

Roots fleshy, fascicled. Leaves distichous, coriaceous, dark green, strap-shaped, sheathing at the base, retuse and oblique at the apex, rough at the margin. Scape erect, plano-convex, bordered, furrowed towards the summit. Flowers from 48 to 50, on long stalks, pendulous, arranged in an umbel. Perianth tubular, clavate, deciduous; the segments yellowish scarlet, greenish at the apex, obtuse, imbricated in a double row, cohering towards the base, the outer rather shorter than the inner, like those of a Lachenalia. Stamens 6, inserted in the orifice of the tube, equal; filaments smooth; anthers small, oval, greenish yellow, versatile. Ovarium inferior, greenish yellow, 3-celled, many seeded, round, ventricose. Ovula numerous, inserted towards the base of the axis; style filiform; stigma somewhat 3-lobed. Fruit berried, indehiscent, red, generally, in consequence of the abortion of two cells and. most of the ovula, one-seeded, marked at the top by the scar of the fallen perianth. Seed single, ascending, (only seen unripe), very smooth, transparent, oval; hilum small, above the base; foramen in the base; raphe short, raised. Testa , when young, marked with very minute areolations; albumen abundant.

* We have named this genus in compliment to her Grace the Duchess of Northumberland, to whom we are greatly indebted for an opportunity of publishing it. Such a compliment has long been due to the noble family of Clive; and we are proud in having the honour of being the first to pay it.

Grevillea 'Sandra Gordon'

ORIGIN: Grevillea `Sandra Gordon' is said to be a hybrid between G. sessilis and G. pteridifolia. It occurred as a spontaneous seedling in about 1966 on Mr David Gordon's property, "Myall Park" at Glenmorgan, Queensland. It is said to be a very hardy and robust small tree. Cultivar received by the Authority 15 September 1976. Applicant: Mr D Gordon.
DESCRIPTION: The leaves are very deeply lobed and are about 200mm long by approximately 150mm wide. Individual lobes are very fine being 1.5-4m wide. Occasionally the lobes are sub-divided into two. The upper surface is shiny green whilst the underside is covered with silvery hairs. The leaf edges are rolled under. The flowers encircle the stem and are produced terminally. The rachis or stem on which the flowers are borne extends a short distance beyond the last floret as in G. sessilis. The bright yellow flower heads, which are produced in profusion over a long period, are about 120mm long by about 80mm wide. The very woolly perianth tube is about 8mm long. The styles, which are the colourful parts of the inflorescence, are about 30cm long.
DIAGNOSIS: This cultivar is different from its parents in that the foliage is intermediate with perhaps a greater affinity to G. pteridifolia. The habit also tends to be intermediate. The flower colour differs in that it is lighter than is usually seen in G. pteridifolia and a much richer colour than is usual for G. sessilis. The flowers encircle the rachis as in G. sessilis but not in G. pteridifolia.
COLOUR CODING: RHS Colour Chart 1966 edition.
perianth tube and limb: near yellow-orange 16d.
style: yellow-orange 15A.
ACRA REFERENCES: ACC114; CBG068686/8701102.

Clivia miniata

Amaryllidaceae - Clivia miniata Madame Le Grelle d’Hanis
Revue de l’horticulture belge et étrangère , Frédéric Burvenich, Édouard Pynaert, Émile Rodigas, August van Geert & Hubret J. van Hulle (editors).Gand [Gent], Bureaux de la Revue, 1881, volume 7, plate 1. Chromolithograph



Imantophyllum miniatum (Lindl.) Hook., Bot. Mag. 80: t. 4783 (1854).

IMANTOPHYLLUM ? MINIATUM

VALLOTA MINIATA ? Lindl. in Gardener's Chron. 1854, p. 119; and at p. 149, observations by Mr. Backhouse.

A flowering specimen of this fine Amaryllidaceous plant was exhibited at a meeting of the Horticultural Society in February of the present year ; and in the following month the Messrs. Backhouse, of the York Nursery, who imported the plant from Natal, obligingly forwarded from their greenhouse the specimen here represented. Dr. Lindley noticed the plant doubtfully as a Vallota : it wants the peculiar duplicature of the faux of the corolla of that genus, and it has not a bulbous root. Mr. Backhouse agrees with us that it is nearer Clivia than Vallota : so near, that I am not sorry to transfer one of the two generic names which that plant has borne to the present. Mr. Backhouse alone -has imported ripe fruit ; and the seeds which he describes are in appearance similar to the so-called bulbiform seed of other Amaryllidaceous plants, Crinum for example. We shall conclude this article with a description from the living plant, by Mr. Backhouse, which accompanied the specimen.

Descr. " After removing the flower-stem, the plant was taken out of the pot, and the earth thoroughly washed from it, so as to allow a complete investigation of its root. This was done with a view of relieving the plant from the encumbrance of a ball of exhausted hard earth. The vertical root-stock is about four inches long, cylindrical, and truncated ; the lower two inches are bare and like a section of a broomstick, about an inch in diameter. From the upper two inches protrude numerous whitish branched fibres, about the thickness of a goose's quill, clothed with a short pubescence on their younger portions. The leaves on our oldest plant were twenty-three in number, in opposite rows, the widened base of each leaf embracing that of the opposite one ; and in this respect, as well as in the root, resembling Clivia. The leaves of our plant are not linear nor rigid, like Clivia, but are linear-lanceolate and stout, and exhibit not only the longitudinal nerves, but some of the stronger transverse partitions ; like those of Clivia, they are perennial. In strong plants they come up from the centre in series of four to five at once, quickly succeeding each other; and about the time that the first of the new series is matured, the flower-stem is pro- truded between the outer one of these and the last of the next older series. The new leaves are of a rather brighter green than the old ones. The flower-stem is flattened, about a foot long, and supports an umbel of twelve to fifteen pedunculate flowers, at first enveloped in a sheath, composed of membranous and membranous-margined bracts. The stamen and style, when the flowers begin to open, are decidedly declining ; but the expansion of the flowers carries the upper stamens a little out of this position, and spreads the whole of them. So far as we have seen, but one ovule in each cell swells. Once, one in each of two cells was matured, and the third was abortive. In two other instances only one in one cell matured, and those of the other cells were abortive. I did not examine minutely the original number of rudimentary ovules. The seeds, being valuable to us, were not cut, so as to examine their internal structure ; but their size was that of a smallish horse-bean, and, though less rugged than those of Crinum, decidedly ' bulbiform at least so both William Wood and myself considered them. They were sown immediately, under the idea that they would not keep, and they quickly pushed up each a leaf. The capsule turned of a brownish colour and became soft, and the integument of the seed was moist ; and on a portion of the exterior being accidentally rubbed off, a silvery membranous coat, like that of the bulb-seeds of Crinum, was exhibited. Our old plant has for the last two years produced fresh leaves and a flower-stem about every four months. It has sent off several suckers from the portion of the root-stock which produces the fibres (if so the thick roots I have described may be called). If the flower-stem be kept in water, possibly some of the capsules may swell a little, so as to exhibit the number of the rudimentary ovules. The corollas are deciduous, as in Clivia, to which I certainly think the plant nearer than to Vallota. The flowers expand about two at a time daily, or in two days or longer periods, but remain so long as to form, along with the others also expanded, a fine head for from two weeks to a mouth, according to temperature.

Clivia miniata (Lindley) Regel

Gartenflora 13: , pl. 434. 1864.

Amaryllidaceae J. St.-Hil. - Missouri Botanical Garden

Alliaceae - Kew

Synonyms :

Clivia grandiflora; Imanthophyllum miniatum; Vallota miniata

Homotypic Synonyms:Imantophyllum miniatum (Lindl.) Hook., Bot. Mag. 80: t. 4783 (1854). Vallota miniata Lindl., Gard. Chron. 1854: 119 (1854). Himantophyllum miniatum (Lindl.) Groenl., Rev. Hort. 1859: 125 (1859).

Heterotypic Synonyms:Clivia sulphurea Laing, Wiener Ill. Gart.-Zeitung 2: 275 (1858). Himantophyllum atrosanguineum F.N.Williams, Cat. 1888: 20 (1888). Imantophyllum atrosanguineum F.N.Williams, Cat. 1888: 20 (1888). Clivia miniata var. citrina W.Watson, Garden (London 1871-1927) 56: 338 (1899). Clivia miniata var. flava E.Phillips, Fl. Pl. S. Africa 11: t. 411 (1931).