HARD WI CKE 'S S CIENCE - G SSI P. 



49 



THE FLORA OF NATAL 



By J. M. WOOD. 



S possibly some of your 

 readers may feel inte- 

 rested in a few notes 

 on the flora of this 

 part of the world, I 

 will, with your per- 

 mission, enumerate a 

 few of the native 

 plants at present grow- 

 ing in my garden. I 

 reside about twelve 

 miles from the sea, and though my garden is 

 neither extensive nor particularly well kept, still 

 I have taken pleasure in adding to it some of 

 our beautiful native plants, a number of which 

 were already growing in it when I came to reside 

 here, having been planted by a former occupant. 

 The first plant which attracts the eye at this season 

 is Gieya Suthcrlandi, a shrub or small tree, now 

 covered with its beautiful scarlet flowers, though 

 the leaves have hardly yet made their appearance; 

 it is a sapindaceous plant, though its true position 

 appears to be doubtful, and is a native of the higher 

 districts of the colony, in the Drakensberg, a range 

 of mountains on the border of the colony. I am told 

 that its spikes of flowers are sometimes a foot or more 

 in length. Here it is usually called the "Natal Bottle 

 Brush," but it is rarely seen in cultivation, as, on the 

 coast, at least, it does not succeed well. Close beside 

 it is Crinum Capense, usually called in the colony the 

 "Natal Lily," and everywhere found in profusion, from 

 the coast to far inland ; and in the ,spring and early 

 summer producing its corymb of pink and white bell- 

 shaped flowers. Near this plant is an Arum, of the 

 genus Richardia (known here as the "Lily of the 

 Nile ") ; it is now out of flower, but in the season 

 flowering freely without the slightest care or attention. 

 On the opposite side of the walk is another Arum of 

 the same genus, whose leaves are spotted with white, 

 like a Caladium, and which has a primrose or yellow 

 spathe, and which is in this district quite plentiful. 

 Beyond this plant, and scrambling about amongst the 

 No. 159. 



adjacent shrubs, is a species of Mesembryanthtmum, 

 with small but richly-coloured deep magenta flowers ; 

 and near it another species with larger white flowers, 

 and which is in some places near here quite common. 

 In the middle of a small grass-plot in front of the 

 house are two plants of Encephalartus, a cycadaccous 

 plant, which sometimes has a caudex 10 feet or more 

 high ; one of these plants, though its stem is only 

 about iS inches high, has produced three large cones 

 in the centre of the crown of leaves or fronds, some- 

 thing like overgrown pine-apples. It is, I think, a 

 male plant, though the scales are not yet sufficiently 

 separated to decide with certainty ; during the five 

 years that I have observed the growth of these plants, 

 they do not seem to have increased much in height, 

 but as they only put forth one crown of leaves in each 

 season, this is not to be wondered at. The largest 

 plant has upon it at the present time four sets of 

 leaves, the lowest whorl of which are now nearly five 

 years old, and rapidly decaying ; but when the spring 

 has fairly set in it will unfold another complete 

 crown of leaves, and thus the trunk gradually increases 

 in height year by year. These plants were brought 

 from Noodsberg, twenty miles from here, where they 

 grow on the sides of precipitous rocks and under 

 slight shade, at an elevation of 3,000 feet or more 

 above the sea-level. We have a species of cycad 

 growing in similar situations near here, but which 

 does not, even in old age, develop a trunk ; its root 

 is napiform, and, when dug out, as much as a man 

 can carry with comfort ; it bears pinnate leaves 

 6 feet or more long. Near this latter plant is Stan- 

 geria paradoxa, also a cycadaceous plant, found, I 

 believe, only in Natal, and named in honour of the 

 late Dr. Stanger, Surveyor-General. It is a very 

 common plant in this neighbourhood, both in the 

 open grass and in bush, and has the fruit of a conifer 

 with the venation of a fern. On one side of the 

 grass-plot is a fence formed of an apocynaceous plant 

 of the genus Carissa, called here the ' ' Amatungulu, " 

 and which bears a fruit which is much esteemed. It 

 has pretty white star-like flowers, and plum-shaped 



