May, 1S93. FLORAL REGIONS TN AFRICA. 371 



and there are no plants whatever over wide areas. In spring, a con- 

 siderable number of small annuals start up after the rains, Hower and 

 fruit in an incredibl}' short time, and die down immediately the 

 country dries again ; the residents are stunted, very often thorny 

 bushes, extremely small and only able to resist drought either by 

 covering themselves with a woolly coat, or by hiding tlieir transpira- 

 tion pores in cunningly-concealed pits or grooves which are so many 

 traps to prevent the egress of the precious water. Some are said to 

 surround themselves with an atmosphere of their own by exudation 

 of essential oil, &c., but this is theoretical. Many have no leaves, 

 others only have leaves in the wet season, and the few that keep their 

 leaves are succulents or have them most beautifully adapted to their 

 requirements. 



When we proceed further along the coast and reach the little 

 limestone hillocks by the sea at Alexandria, we are again among a 

 different set of plants. They are very near the Algerian forms, 

 but not exactly the same; probably they came from Palestine and are 

 part of the Syrian flora as distinguished from that of the desert. 

 Nothing is more exquisite than the flora of these nummulitic lime- 

 stone hills. There are masses of the crimson Rannncuius asiaticus, the 

 delicate little white star-of-Bethlehem, many species oi Astragalus, diXid 

 generally a wealth of colour and a beauty of form which I have never 

 seen elsewhere. 



On entering the Nile delta there is again a sudden and distinct 

 change. The deep, carefully-irrigated alluvium is covered with a 

 dense mass of plants, that is, if they are allowed to grow, for the soil 

 is very valuable, and these very special characteristics of soil and 

 water have produced the endemic Egyptian plants, such as the 

 Trifolmm alexamhiniim, or " berseem " clover, of which some seven 

 crops can be raised in one year on the same ground. Travelling up 

 the Nile, we find ourselves before Assouan out of the delta flora, and 

 again, as at Tripoli, in the great desert whose plants in many cases 

 extend from Beluchistan to the shore of the Atlantic between Morocco 

 and Senegambia. 



Thus, in North Africa there are four marked floras more dif- 

 ferent from one another than are the floras of England, and one 

 might almost say, Tibet, and to these must be added that of the 

 higher peaks of the Atlas Mountains, which is of an alpine character, 

 that is to say, five different sets of plants in Extratropical North Africa. 



In Extratropical South Africa, beginning at the North, we find 

 along the coast an offshoot of the evergreen humid tropical forest 

 which has crept down from the Zambesi, and has occupied Pondo- 

 land, the lower parts of Natal, and, in an extremely modified con- 

 dition so far as species go, formed the Perie Forest of King William'sr 

 Town, and the Knysna Forest of Cape Colony. All these species of 

 the eastern littoral, finding themselves in temperate and not tropical 

 conditions, have varied greatly, and being separated from each other, 



2B 2 



