40 PRf:SID!-:XTIAL ADDRESS. SECTION C. 



Bolus, whose great knowledge of South African botany, and 

 intimate acquaintance with the conditions and the needs of 

 South Africa, entitle his opinions to our most respectful atten- 

 tion. In the course of his evidence before a Parliamentary 

 Committee in 1877, Dr. Bolus made statements of which the 

 following is a paraphrase: — 



" I consider the Botanic Gardens of Cape Town a great discredit, not only 

 to the town but to the Colony altogether. They are wanting in proper 

 arrangement. There is no satisfactory attention to the nomenclature of 

 the trees and shrubs. There is a great want of a proper representation of 

 Colonial plants, which ought to be the first thing attended to, and there is 

 not a proper communication maintained with the other Botanic Gardens 

 of the world. I think one of the causes of their unsatisfactory state is the 

 totally wrong locality that has been chosen for them. They should be a 

 Botanic Garden of a national character and under the control of Government, 

 and should place themselves in communication with and assist all the other 

 Botanic Gardens in the Colony." 



Many conditions have changed since these words were first 

 printed, but the botanic garden which Dr. Bolus wished to see 

 has yet to be established. 



A distinguished Indian Ijotanist and forester. ]\lr. J. S. 

 Gamble, F.R.S., visited the Cape in 1890. His intimate know- 

 ledge of the botanical establishments of India invests his re- 

 marks with particular interest. He says: — 



" As for the Botanic Gardens [of Cape Town], they are simply a disappoint- 

 ment, though the Director, Prof. MacOwan, does his best with the small 

 sums available. The stag-headed appearance of the chief trees points to 

 what is the actual fact, a water-logged subsoil, the bed of an old river, while 

 I he untidy and unkempt appearance of the Gardens shows clearly the little 

 interest taken by the Colony in Botanical Science, and points to a want of 

 appreciation of the benefits which a really well-conducted botanical head- 

 (juarters station can confer on a country which is, after all, chiefly agricultural. 

 I was in hopes, when I visited the Garden, of finding a named 

 collection of the Cape heaths, the Proteas, the Geraniums, the Gladioli and 

 the other chief constituents of the beautiful and most interesting ' bush ' 

 or ' veldt ' vegetation ; but the Gardens had not even a single silver-tree to 

 show a stranger, and the heaths, and indeed all flowering plants, were con- 

 spicuous by their absence. What ought to be done is to convert the present 

 Botanic Garden into a small park and throw it open to the public, handing 

 it over to the Municipality, who would probably then try to make it as pretty 

 and interesting as such parks are everywhere in Europe as well as in America, 

 India and Australia. And then a new Botanic Garden should be made on 

 suitable soil near some one of the stations on the suburban railway, such as 

 Rosebank or Rondebosch or even Wynberg, and of an area of at least 200 

 acres so that it might have plenty of space not only to grow and exhibit 

 the indigenous flora but to experiment with exotics. And the absurd idea 

 of such an institution ' paying ' should be totally abandoned. If this were 

 done, under the best management, and with a really good herbarium and 

 botanical museum, the Botanic Gardens of Cape Town would be to the Colony 

 what ' Kew ' is to England, the Calcutta Gardens to India, or Peradeniya 



to Ceylon A good Botanic Garden would pay indirectly if it 



did not directly." 



Apropos of the transfer of the Cape Town Garden to the 

 Municipality in 1891, the following comments appeared in tlie 

 Official Bulletin of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: — 



" It is to be hoped, however, that botanical enterprise at the Cape has 

 not so entirely died out that it may not be possible at some future time to 

 establish a Botanical Garden, under scientific control worthy of the Colony 

 and of its vast and valuable resources. The Cape Flora is one of the most 



