NOTE ON FLORAL PERSISTENCE UNDER SPECIAL 

 CONDITIONS. 



By Rev. Frederick Charles Kolbe, B.A., D.D. 



There is nothing strange or unexpected in forms of life 

 remaining substantially the same for long periods, provided the 

 environment remains unchanged. But here and there, owing 

 to denudation or other causes, a whole environment may 

 gradually dwindle away. It is interesting then to watch the 

 fleeting succession of frail" plants telling the same story as the 

 permanent rocks around. 



For instance, just near the entrance of Tulbagh Kloof 

 there are some masses of rock called Bushmen's Rocks. One 

 of these masses is about ioo yards in length and not many 

 feet high. It is all that remains of a spur of the neighbouring 

 Table Mountain Sandstone range. It is completely surrounded 

 by the clay-slate formation of the Malmesbury Beds. Per- 

 haps it is not large enough to be called a maesa, but it might 

 be used as an illustration of that physical phenomenon. Now, 

 of course, the rocks alone tell the story plainly enough 

 of how denudation first isolated and at length minimised 

 the mountain down to a tiny plateau. But even if we 

 knew nothing of the rocks, the plants would tell the 

 same tale equally well. The little macsa abounds in 

 plants whose congeners are sought for in vain in the clay 

 around, but are found again in the mountains over the way. 

 Unfortunately I have not had the opportunity to make a list 

 of these plants but Lachenalias , Albucas, and an Asclepiad 

 straggler recur to my memory. The general impression, how- 

 ever, was to me vivid and immediate, and ever since I have 

 promised myself the pleasure of a special collection there. 



A similar phenomenon displayed itself to me a year or 

 two ago at Cala. The hills near this beautiful town are under- 

 going a very rapid denudation — so much so that I know no 

 place in South Africa where that process can be better demon- 

 strated in all its varieties. The rocks there are, I suppose. 

 of the Karoo Beds ; at any rate, they have the characteristic 

 frequent in those Beds of alternating layers of hard sandstone 

 with soft shale. The result is that the merry little river 

 there is busily engaged in scooping out krantzes which it 

 presently abandons, leaving them high and dry in successive 

 stages up the mountain-side, telling where once the waters found 

 resistance. Most of these krantzes have trickling over their 

 surface and into their crevices the overflow of the moisture of 

 the soft spongy slopes that intervene. Hence the environment 

 has remained sufficiently alike to enable plants to corroborate 

 the story of the rocks. Along the rocks of the stream to-day 

 there are forms of Streptocarpus, Crassula, Alepidea and other 



