448 



J. W. BEWS. 



left standing, the undergi-owth only being cut away. Towards 

 Congella and Umbilo the forest deteriorates into scrub. All 

 these places can be reached in a few minutes by tramway from 

 Durban. Near Port Shepstone there is also a representative 

 patch of primeval forest containing some fine specimens of the 

 Natal mahogany, Trichilia emetica. Further inland, away 

 from the coastal railway, there are frequent small patches of 

 scrub and forest, usually in somewhat inaccessible situations. 

 Enough remains to show that the succession in coast forest 

 is similar in its main features to that in the midlands and 

 Drakensberg. 



Text-fig. 2. 



Succession in forest in Natal. 



It was pointed out in a former paper ^ that in the Drakens- 

 berg a zone of scrub preceded the forest. Further details 

 were given by Henkel." The mode of succession appears to 

 be essentially the same for all South African forest, and is 

 illustrated diagrammatically in text-fig. 2. It should be noted 

 that the majority of the tree species are distributed by birds 

 and other animals. These transport the seeds along the 

 stream banks and in such moist situations the forest succession 

 is initiated. The Waterboom associes (hygrophilous bush) is 

 frequently the first stage of it on the coast belt. As long as 

 the bush is confined to the stream bank, Eugenia cor data, 



• Bews, J. W., " The Plant Ecology of the Drakensberg Range," 

 'Ann. of Natal Museum,' vol. iii, pt. 3, 1917. 



- Henkel, J. S., "Foi'est Progress in the Drakensberg," ' S.A. Journ. 

 of Sci.,' December, 1916. 



