338 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



rains often impeded our course, and formed strings of 

 pools, in which we found the Lagarosiphon muscoides, Harv. 

 (n. 1732) ; an aquatic plant, figured in " Hooker's London 

 Journal of Botany." We collected both male and female 

 flowering specimens of this curious little plant, the latter 

 only bear their flowers on long peduncles, by means of 

 which they reach the surface of the water. As the male 

 flowers grow on short peduncles, enclosed in a common 

 spatha, they remain constantly immersed. Many of them 

 detached from the plant after their perfect envelopment, 

 were floating on the surface amongst the female flowers, 

 to fulfil their function, as in Vallisneria. A Marsilea, another 

 aquatic plant, but without fructification, was likewise spar- 

 ingly distributed amongst the former plants. 



We arrived towards evening at the foot of a conical hill, 

 being the extremity of a spur of that range, towards which 

 we had bent our course during the last few days ; and we 

 took up our quarters here for the night. A few plants, just 

 flowering and growing towards the flanks and top of that 

 hill, were gathered ; one, resembling a Psoralea, n. 449, with 

 blue flowers, growing in shady, rocky places ; as also a peren- 

 nial Composita, n. 1041, the leaves somewhat similar to an 

 Achillea. Amongst grasses, in a sheltered situation, towards 

 the top, I noticed the Alepidea Amatymbica, an umbelliferous 

 plant, first discovered on the Winterberg chain, in the Tam- 

 buki country ; a small Thysanlha, and n. 645, a crassulaceous 

 plant, growing in the shade, under some rocks, flowering 

 likewise, were added to the collection. While shaping our 

 course next day towards the nearest point of the main range 

 of mountains, now only a short distance in front of us, we fell in 

 with a well beaten road, opened but a few years ago, by the 

 main bodies of the Dutch emigrants, on their march towards the 

 Natal country. We pursued that road for a few hours, 

 leading us in a north-easterly direction, till we came to some 

 small parties of emigrants, who had made a temporary abode 

 near a small periodical brook. A moderately high hill, in 



