262 BOTANICAL EXCURSIONS, &c. 
The plants common to the neighbourhood of Cape Town and that of Gra- 
ham's Town, are not very numerous. The following list contains those which 
I observed : 
Protea cynaroides. Psoralea pinnata. 
Fusanus compressus. T'ephrosia Capensis. 
Erica cerinthoides. Chironia baccifera. 
T'archonanthus camphoratus. Myrsine, sp. 
Calla ZEthiopica. Cliffortia strobilifera. 
Lobelia coronopifolia. Mesembryanthemum edule. 
Todea Africana. 
The Heaths and Proteas are comparatively rare in this part of the colony ; 
so likewise are the Restiacee, which are the most abundant of all plants in the 
south-western districts, but which are here, in great measure, superseded by 
real grasses, On the other hand, certain tribes of plants, which are almost or 
quite wanting in the western districts, are represented in the eastern by several 
species ; such, in particular, are the 4canthacee, Apocynacee, Bignoniacee, 
Rubiacee, and Capparidee. It is remarkable, also, that these are groups which 
belong chiefly to tropical regions; and that the Flora of the eastern part of 
the Cape colony thus seems to approximate more to that of the tropics than 
does that of the western part, although the temperature of Albany is not higher 
(indeed, if anything, rather lower), than that of the Cape district. From what 
little we know of the plants of the Natal coast, it would seem that the tropical 
character there becomes more decided, and that the peculiar vegetation of the 
Cape is gradually shaded off, as it were, into that of equinoctial Africa.* 
Three large species of Aloe are very common in the environs of Graham’s 
Town, where their tall and stately spikes of glowing red flowers form the most 
striking ornaments of the rocks and ravines. The tallest kind, which me 
quently grows to the height of fifteen feet and even more, is the Aloe arbores- : 
cens, pretty well represented in Redouté’s “Plantes grasses." A second » 
the same which I have mentioned in note D to the preceding chapter, and which — 
I suppose to be Aloe feroz. Of the third I can find no figure; it is perhaps due 
lineata of Haworth, and of the 2nd edition of “Hortus Kewensis,” but the 
"y brief and unsatisfactory character of that genus is not sufficient toidentify - 
it. The flowers of this third kind are exactly like those of A. arborescens, but — 
the stem is seldom more than five feet high, and remarkably thick; tbe 
leaves are much shorter than those of the above-mentioned species, ight 
not recurved, flat on the upper side, moderately convex on the under, edged 
with short, close-set, reddish-brown prickles; their colour is a deep ge 
and they are marked with numerous, longitudinal, straight veins or ribs, W210" — 
as far as I have seen, are peculiar to this species, and seem eo entitle it to the 
name of lineata. du 5 
(B) The weeping willow which abounds on the banks of the Fish River, Kat 
River, and other streams of the Caffer country, is not the true Babylonian f? 
* See Harvey’s Genera of South African Plants. 
