DESCRIPTION:--A succulent leafless spiny tree, 10 to 15 ft. high; trunk becoming naked and cylindric below, 15 to 20 cm. thick; branches ascending, curved at their basal part, 5-to 6-angled, deeply constricted into conic-ovate or somewhat heart-shaped segments 5 to 15 cm. long, and 4 to 7·5 cm. in diameter, with the small central solid part not more than 2 to 2·5 cm. thick in the younger branches, glabrous; angles wing-like, with triangular channels 2 to 4 cm. deep between them, their margins with a continuous horny nearly even grey border. _Leaves_ rudimentary, scale-like, about 1 mm. long and 2 mm. broad, transverse, apiculate; spines 3 to 8 mm. long, in pairs 6 to 18 mm. apart, widely diverging, grey, with blackish tips; flowering-eyes 3 to 8 mm. above the spine-pairs; cymes 1 to 3 from the same eye, sessile, each with 3 involucres, glabrous. _Bracts_ about 3 mm. long and 4 mm. broad, rounded, concave, usually minutely denticulate; involucres all sessile and the middle one male, lateral fertile, 5 to 6 mm. in diameter, cup-shaped, glabrous, with 5 glands and 5 erect short transversely rectangular fringed lobes; glands contiguous, 3 mm. in their greater diameter, narrowly transverse oblong, very minutely rugulose on the upper surface; capsule about 6 mm. long and 9 to 12 mm. in diameter, exserted on a stout pedicel, curved to one side, deeply 3-lobed seen from above, with laterally compressed lobes, glabrous, dark purple on the apex and along the angles, having a somewhat fleshy calyx at its base, with 3 deltoid-ovate acute lobes about 2 mm. long; cell-walls about 0·5 mm. thick, woody. _Styles_ 2 mm. long, united for two-thirds of their length, with spreading arms, bifid at the apex; seeds 3 mm. in diameter, globose, with a raised line in a very slight furrow on one side, and a small pit at one end, light grey. * * * * * PLATE 157.--Fig. 1, cross section of stem; Fig. 2, inflorescence; Fig. 3, male flowers; Fig. 4, male flower with fringed lobe; Fig. 5, gynaecium of female flower. F.P.S.A., 1924. [Illustration: _158._] PLATE 158. LACHENALIA PENDULA. _Cape Province._ * * * * * LILIACEAE. Tribe SCILLEAE. LACHENALIA, _Jacq._; _Benth. et. Hook. f. Gen. Plant._ vol. iii. p. 807. * * * * * =Lachenalia pendula=, _Ait. Hort. Kew._ vol. i. p. 461; edit. 2, vol. ii. p. 288; _Fl. Cap._ vol. vi. p. 423. * * * * * This species of _Lachenalia_ was amongst some of the earliest of the Cape introductions into the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, having been sent by Masson in 1774. About the same time, or probably earlier, it was introduced into the gardens of Holland, and was eventually imported into England from Holland. In 1801 an excellent figure appeared in the _Botanical Magazine_ (Plate 590).