510 J. W. BEW8. 



during the dry season. Already wide areas have thus been 

 cultivated, and were it not for the fact that during the last 

 few years the East Coast fever has killed nearly all the cattle 

 in this district, the change would probably have been much 

 g'reater. With no cattle to eat it, the veld grass has been 

 allowed to grow as it would, and the botanical analysis of it 

 has been all the easier, seeing that it has always been 

 allowed to flower. Now that the regular dipping of the 

 cattle seems likely to stamp out this East Coast or tick fever, 

 the herds will soon increase, and the vegetation will be more 

 and more interfered with and changed. 



(b) Eragrostis curvula is another coarse wiry species 

 similar to Aristida in its habitat. It is not abundant as a 

 pure association, but to a certain extent the same remarks 

 apply to it as to Aristida. It is most common along the 

 Kafir paths, and it rareh" replaces very large areas of the 

 veld. 



(c) Cynodon dactylon — a grass largely used for making- 

 lawns in Natal — is frequently dominant, or forms practically 

 a pure association over patches of changed veld. It is usually 

 found where a Kafir hut has been, or in places where cattle 

 have been kept and the ground has consequently been 

 manured (" Lair-flora "). 



(3) Low Yeld. 



(a) Anthistiria imberbis is again the dominant grass 

 over the alluvial flats, and the gently sloping ground above 

 them. The soil is of the dry, hard-baked, clayey type already 

 described. It is compact and badly aerated but richer in 

 chemical salts. The low veld variety of Anthistiria is very 

 different in general habit from the same species as it grows 

 on the high veld. In the low veld it is loosely tufted and 

 seldom flowers. When it does so it flowers earlier in the year 

 than the high veld variety. Seeing that flowering culms are 

 not formed except sporadically here and there the grass of 

 the low veld does not grow so tall as that of the hio-h veld. 



