BOTANY OF SOUTHERN RHODESIA. 491 
common. These plants all come up after the veld fires. Of 
succulent plants there were very few. A Stapelia sp. in fruit only 
(now doing well in the Chelsea Physic Garden) formed patches 
by granite rocks; one or two Kalanchoe in fruit, a gregarious 
stemless Aloe, and in one loeality a Crassula sp. were the only 
representatives seen, unless we include Justicia elegantula, on 
the strength of its fleshy underground radical leaves. 
In the kopjes where the soil is a very rich black humus, from 
the decayed leaves which aggregate between the rock-fissures 
and crevices, the growth of trees is sometimes finer, and 
many trees seem limited to these areas. The fires run up the 
kopjes every year, as systematically as over the veld, but the 
enormous boulders the granite breaks up into afford a certain 
protection, and so allow the growth of some handsome symmetrical 
trees. 
Large areas of bare lichen-covered granite occur, interspersed 
by a network of cracks, and in these Elephantorrhiza Burkü, 
Asclepias tenuifolia, a Vellozia sp., and Sarcostemma viminale 
run for some distance; JMyrothamnus flabellifolia, with the 
Vellozia, also favours shallow pans in the granite, and Selaginella 
rupestris spreads in white masses at this season, wherever it 
finds any holding, possibly succeeding the lichens as a soil- 
producer. A very characteristic kopje type, gregarious, is the 
tree Euphorbia angularis (Pl. 19), often associated with an arbor- 
escent Aloe; the only other tree-form, Æ. Reinhardtii, occurring 
always scattered, on both veld and kopjes. Of plants not 
collected, Pteris longifolia and Osmunda regalis are very general 
on the banks of streams, the latter forming large patches in 
shallow standing water; Jasminum stenolobum, a veld plant, is 
common, sending up single branches, not a metre long, covered 
with flowers and leaves, and was found associated with Clero- 
dendron myricoides, of similar habit. 
Terminalia sericea is one of the dominant veld trees, and a 
Strychnos sp. (Kaffir orange), with round gourd-like fruit and 
an edible pulp of Medlar consistency, much affected by baboons, 
is most conspicuous while the fruit is still hanging on the trees, 
on veld and kopjes. 
In considering this type of Plant Association, two salient 
facts stand out. 
Firstly, the absence of gregariousness, or the dominance over 
a certain area of any one species. Two exceptions to this rule 
