12 ItEV. ALFRED T. BRYANT. 



property is indicated. A valuable and exliaustive account 

 of about 150 South African medicinal plants, as nsed by the 

 Xosa and Fing'o Kafirs in the Cape Colony, has already been 

 supplied by Mr. Andrew Smith, M.A., in his book entitled 

 ' A Contribution to South African Materia Medica,' and 

 the names of 240 other such, mentioned in this ai'ticle as 

 in use among the Zulus, will indicate to medical botanists 

 where their future investigations might be most profitably 

 ])ursued. 



It is a curious thing that so many of our health -giving 

 plants, should, at the same time, be capable of killing, and 

 the Kafir pharmacopceia is as abundant in such poisons as is 

 our own. For the benefit of such as desire to be warned, I 

 should say all of the following should be labelled at any rate 

 as dangerous, many of them being most certainly fatally 

 poisonous, and that, with some constitutions, even in minute 

 quantities. It must be recollected, however, that every part 

 of a plant is not always equally poisonous ; that the noxious 

 properties are not at all seasons equally great, and that they 

 may at times be completely removed or neutralised by the 

 method of medicinal preparation. There are the i(Qu-engu or 

 [NY iLozane (Tephrosia macropoda and T. diffusa), 

 iNcohiha (Gromphocarpus sp.), iniFnlioa (Ophiocaulon 

 gummifera), imPila (Callilepsis laureola), uMahedeni 

 (Phytolacca aby ssinica), inGcolo, inGcino (Scilla rigidi- 

 folia), ILahatliel-a (Hy poxis latif olia), w^iTor/i/e (Hypoxis 

 sp.), umZilanyoni bush or (iV) iiMinya, uMalusi, inTlmi- 

 (jftnyemhJie (Acocanthera thunbergii), the graminaceous 

 iuDIolotJii, umDlandlasi, uLovivane, uNtlanyofhi, mnaNgve, 

 iimDlphe (Synadenium arborescens), inKtca (Dioscorea 

 i-upicola),- uDlutshana (Aster asper), iDunyamird or 



' The sign (N) indicates a Natal name, as distinct from that in nse in 

 Zululand. 



- This plant Ijelongs botanically to the yam group. Tliongh its large 

 tubers ai-e said to cause a roving madness if eaten raw, the Zulus have 

 discovered that, vrhen boiled, they furnish quite a harmless food in 

 times of famine. 



