330 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



Pterodiscus speciosus, Hook. (n. 1203), and Menodora a/ri- 

 cana, Hook. (n. 1132), seem to be only casual occupants of 

 this remote region. Their occurrence here may be attributed 

 in some respect to the depressed situation, and the shelter 

 they receive from the high slopes on both sides of that river, 

 against the cold and inclement weather which prevails on 

 these more elevated plains during winter. The difference 

 with regard to vegetation between an open country, exposed 

 to the influence of cold weather and to the scorching south- 

 eastern trade winds, and that of deep valleys or glens, shel- 

 tered against those disadvantages, is most remarkable within 

 the colony, towards the southern sea-shores, which must 

 strike every visitor of an observing mind with rapture when 

 approaching the forest scenery in the mountains near the 

 Plattenberg^s Bay, or the deep ravines of the Louri and the 

 Van-Stades Rivers. There the hills and elevated plains are 

 clothed with short brushwood, or with herbs and grasses. 

 Occasionally may be seen on these open tracts, some scat- 

 tered clumps of shrubs, composed of species which grow, 

 under more favourable circumstances, to lofty forest trees 

 in the forests in the deep dells of the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood. The air in them is ever moist, for the constantly 

 blowing south-eastern wind has scarcely any access to it to 

 carry off the moisture of the atmosphere, and being warmed 

 by the rays of the sun, the heat is often very intense, height- 

 ened by the moisture of the atmosphere, so essential to the 

 luxuriant growth of that peculiar vegetation. The want of pro- 

 tection against the influence of the scorching south-eastern 

 trade winds seems a great hindrance to the greater extension of 

 South African forest scenery over a more level and open 

 tract of country. On some places, as at the Kneisna, Zizi- 

 kamma, Krakakamma, the Olifantshoeck, where the expanse 

 of the sea-shore is favourable for attracting the moisture 

 carried by the trade winds passing over a great ocean, forests 

 may be seen of considerable extent, spreading over an open 

 and somewhat level tract; but even here they generally 

 prefer the southern flanks of hills, facing the moist breezes 



