indeed several of the fourteen described species of the genus are 
generally, for want of complete specimens, unsatisfactorily distin- 
guished. Of those fourteen I had hesitated whether to refer our 
plant to the #. Caffer, a plant of Thunberg’s discovery, or the / 
longifolius of Lehmann, two species which have so many points in 
common, that I have at length ventured to consider them the 
same and to adopt the older name.* Our specimens are cer- 
tainly liable to some variations in the greater or lesser length and 
breadth of the leaflets, and in their being sometimes wholly en- 
tire on a plant, while on other plants a considerable number is 
seen bearmg one or two or three large, often patent, remote, 
spinous teeth, generally on one margin. 
E. Caffer, being a plant of the ‘ Hortus Kewensis,’ might be 
expected to be an authentically named species in the Gardens of 
Kew; but none has of late years borne that name, and the one 
now before us is of recent importation; but there is a fine old 
Encephalartus, introduced by Masson (as was the &. Caffer of 
H. K.), which I should have been disposed to refer to that species, 
if it had exhibited any disposition to toothing on the leaflets (and 
the two varieties given by Aiton are both toothed), and were it 
not that the leaves, especially the recently formed ones, are as 
glauco-pruinose as those of #. horridus, a peculiarity not noticed 
by any author as existing in #. Caffer. The plant to which I now 
allude (of which an atlas-folio figure was engraved from the 
pencil of Mrs. Withers, and published under the name of 7. 
pungens) has rouch longer leaves than those of our #. Caffer, five 
and a half feet long, not, or scarcely, recurved at the extremity, 
the leaflets larger and longer, more crowded, fifty-two to sixty on 
each side the rachis, a// mucronated; a male cone from it, pre- 
served it in the Museum, is two feet five inches long and eight 
inches in diameter ; and there is reason to believe it was a plant 
of the same species which produced a female cone at Lady Tan- 
kerville’s, Walton-upon-Thames, in 1832, and was published by 
Mr. Chandler,} in three atlas-folio plates; and as that plant is 
known to have gone to Chatsworth, it is probable that it was 
that which bore the fruit that was modelled there by James 
Yates, Esq., and of which he kindly presented a model to Kew, 
under the name of F. Caffer. 
In regard to the figures of H. Caffer and EP. longifolius, referred 
to by Miquel, I regret that I have not access to either, and they 
are probably unimportant. . 
The ELncephalartus Caffer is the Bread-tree of the Caffers; and 
* Dr. Lehmann thus distinguishes the two in his ‘ Pugillus’:— 
_ &. Caffer ; candice glabro, rachi trigono pinnisque lanceolatis acutis mucrona- 
tis viridibus glabris, junioribus dente uno alterove, adultis integris, fructu glabro. 
i. longifolius ; candice glabro, rachi tetragono pinnisque lanceolatis acutis 
muticis integerrimis viridibus glabris, fructu glabro. 
J} Under the incorrect name of Zamia pungens. 
