142 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER." 



delicious shade, and shutting in the road on either hand with 

 their closely set stems. No doubt the very trying heat and glare 

 of the open sand-flat over which one drives before reaching the 

 Wynberg grove, makes one exaggerate the beauty of its refresh- 

 ing shade. Even amongst the grove the brick-red dusty soil 

 stains the trunks of the trees, and after long absence of rain 

 turns the very foliage brick-red. At Wynberg is the cricket 

 ground where the Army plays the Navy, the Army the Cape 

 Town Club, and so on, and also a most excellent hotel, known 

 as " Cogill's," after the proprietor. 



Above Wynberg are the talus slopes and debris mounds of 

 Table Mountain, covered with the wonderful Silver-tree, whose 

 leaves shine like burnished metal, and which is found nowhere 

 else in the world but about the slopes of this mountain and its 

 immediate neighbourhood. It does not even grow at Simons 

 Bay. Nowhere on the earth but just round this one mountain. 



The Silver-tree (Leacadendron argenteum) is one of the 

 Proteacece, which natural order is characteristic of the flora 

 of the Cape and South Australia, the genera being nearly 

 equally divided between the two regions, and found scarcely 

 anywhere else. A few only are found in tropical Australia, in 

 New Zealand, South America, and equatorial Asia. Another 

 group of plants, the Restiacece, serve further to connect the Cape 

 with Australia, and there are other marked alliances. 



The wide difference between the West and East Australian 

 flora has been treated of by Sir Joseph Hooker, and the greater 

 resemblance of the Western Australian flora to that of South 

 Africa. Sir Joseph Hooker thinks it probable, from botanical 

 grounds, that Western Australia was connected with the Cape 

 district by land at a time when it was severed from Eastern 

 Australia. 



How is it that Marsupials are not found at the Cape, being 

 nevertheless found in the Great Oolite in England ? It would 

 seem necessary almost that they must have been present at the 

 Cape and have died out, unless it is possible that Proteacece and 

 Restiacece are very much older than Marsupials, in which case 

 they would be very old indeed. 



Table Mountain is most easily accessible from this side, and 



