" M. le Oomte d'Altenstein, Chancellor efc Ministre d'JEtat 

 de S.M. le Roi de Prusse." 



^ With regard to the geographical distribution of the 

 South African Encephalarti, there is little information to 

 be had. I find, however, in the Kew collection above 

 alluded to, the notice of a meeting of the Phytologists 

 Club (see Phytologist, 1852, p. 613) at which extracts 

 were read from a letter from Charles Zeyher, dated Cape- 

 town, April, 1852, to the effect that '• E. Altensteinii is 

 found in woods on the Boschman's River, not far from the 

 virgin forests of Olifant's Hoek, where also E. tridentatus is 

 found, but sparingly; " that is in the district of Albany, 

 and not far from the sea-coast. Nor are there available 

 authentic accounts of the height to which the species 

 attain. In cultivation E. Altensteinii attains nearly six feet 

 at Kew and elsewhere, with a diameter of ten inches to a 

 foot, and the leaves are five feet in length; but that some 

 species attain a very much greater height would appear 

 from a letter addressed to me by the late Mr. Charles 

 Meller, when in charge of the Botanical Gardens in 

 Mauritius. Mr. Meller had returned from a visit to Natal, 

 where he had been informed by Mr. Sanderson of a huge 

 Encephalartos, which the latter gentleman had met with in 

 a secluded valley of Natal, about thirty miles from the sea, 

 the trunk of which measured sixteen feet before branching, 

 and twenty-five to the crown, which was formed of five 

 branches. It is probably E. Altensteinii. — J. D. U. 



Tab. 7162, Cone and leaves of Mr. Tillett's plant, the cone reduced to one 

 half of the natural size, the leaves of the natural size, as are fig. 1, the crowns 

 of the scales ; 2, upper and under surface of scales removed with the seeds, 

 and f. 4, vertical section of seed. 



Tab. 7163, Reduced sketch of Mr. Tillett's plants, from a photograph ; and 

 leaflets of the natural size from the Kew plant. 



