B.P.I.-58. S. ,M.I».-35. 



Ill— PLANT INTRODUCTION NOTES FROM SOUTH AFRICA." 



By David <i. Faibchild, Agricultural Explorer. IRRARY 



NEW YORK 



BOTANICAL 

 INTRODUCTION. GAR! 



From the standpoint of an agricultural explorer South Africa is a 

 land of newly introduced plants. Compared with old civilized coun- 

 tries like Egypt and Japan, it is poor in cultivated species that are 

 suitable for introduction into America. Its native flora is rich, but 

 the number of economic plants is small and the most important of 

 these have been brought into Africa in comparativel^ecent times. 

 Only one who has been bewildered by the hosts of cultivated native 

 plants of the Malay Archipelago can fully realize the deAth of food 

 plants of South Africa. The explanation is simple. The Kafirs and 

 Hottentots were, like our American Indians, races of hunters, and lived 

 mostly on the immense herds of game which roamed over the vast 

 areas of grass land on the South African veldt. As these herds of 

 antelope and other game diminished in numbers or disappeared the 

 natives became stock raisers and counted their wealth by the number 

 of cattle they owned. The cultivation of the soil, which in such lands 

 as Java or Japan was the chief occupation of the people, played a 

 small role among the blacks of Cape Colony, and in consequence few 

 wild plants were brought into cultivation, and the staple food plants of 

 other races, when introduced late in the history of the country, were 

 accepted by the Kafirs and grown in a careless, slovenly manner. The 

 mealies of the country are the maize plants from America. Cassava 

 is the West Indian manihot, Kafir corn is the "Dura" of the Arabs , 



^Several South African wild plants have already found their way into cultivation 

 as valuable ornamentals, but, as Mr. Fairchild has pointed out in the present Bulle- 

 tin, the South African flora is poor in economic species. There are some, however, 

 that may prove valuable additions to the forage resources of our Southwest, and the 

 grapes and the pineapples described will certainly be worth a careful trial. 

 ' The plants and seeds sent through the kindness of Mr. Lathrop have been dis- 

 tributed in such a manner that we shall be able to watch the growth of these plants 

 in the United States.— A. J. Pietees, Botanist in Charge of Seed and Plant Introduction 



and Distribution, Washington, D. C, May 8, 1903. 



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