76 PETER MACOWAN. 



of the Herbarium in 1881 the number of sheets of Cape type plants 

 mounted up as a study set by Dr. Harvey was about 3,000 only, 

 and no representation of the flora of any other country existed. 

 At his retirement, twenty-four years later, the total number of 

 sheets had increased to 44,000, whereof about 25,500 represented 

 the Cape of Good Hope. Precise and methodical in all he touched, 

 his ideal of the Herbarium, as he himself once expressed it, was 

 " jealously maintained order and precision," and to this, no less 

 than to his industry, the vast strides that it made under his care 

 are due. During the last few years of his incumbency Dr. MacOwan 

 initiated a useful scheme of assisting the High Schools and Colleges 

 in the country which gave special attention to botanical teaching, 

 by presenting them with collections of named plants as foundations 

 for herbaria. Some 1,600 species were thus distributed in 1903 

 amongst the following institutions : the Good Hope Seminary, 

 Cape Town ; the Huguenot College. Wellington ; the \'ictoria 

 College, Stellenbosch ; the Riebeek College, Uitenhagc ; the 

 Bloemhof High School. Stellenbosch ; the Oudtshoorn Public 

 School : the Rhenish Institute, Stellenbosch ; and the \'redenburg 

 High School, Cape Town. 



His persistent energy and vim is also testified to by his excep- 

 tionally numerous papers and published reports. In addition to 

 earlier v^Titings, he prepared, during the three years preceding 

 his appointment as Government Botanist, namely, from 1888 to 

 1891, no less than 150 papers and bulletins for Government on 

 various topics, and to this collection he added 1,028 more during 

 the succeeding fourteen years. This was altogether apart from 

 his w'ork at the Herbarium and from his duties first as Professor 

 of Botanv and subsequently as Government Botanist. Only a 

 very small selection from the compendious list can be given here by 

 way of illustration : 

 1866. Catalogue of South African plants compiled for the use of the S..\. 



Botanical Society. 

 1869. Notuke Capenses. (Linnean Society's journal.) 

 1 87 1. Herbarium notes for the use of students of Cape Botany. 

 1877. Colonial Stock Food Plants. 

 1 88 1. Novitates Capenses; descriptions of new plants from the Cape of 



Good Hope. (Linnean Society's Journal.) Conjointly with H. 



Bolus. 

 1884. Botanical diagrams fcjr the use of schools of the Cape Colony. 



1886. Personalia of Botanical Collectors at the Cape. (Trans. S. A. Phil. Soc). 



1887. Plants that furnish stock food at the Cape. 



1890. Bitphane tuxicaria and its reputed connection with the Bushman 



arrow poison. 



1 89 1. .Materials for basket-making capable of growth in Cape Colony. 

 1891. The cultivation of Sweet Chestnut and Walnut in Griqualand East. 



1 89 1. The use of Eucalyptus extract to prevent Ijoiler scale in locomotives. 



1892. Indentilication of a collection of the pasture grasses of the Orange 



Free State. 



1892. On teaching farm economy at the Cape. 



1893. O^^ th^ Cape Buchus commercially esteemed, and a use for other 



disregarded species. 



1894. On Cape medicinal plants worth ctimmercial exploitation. 



1895. On the culture of rhubarb at the Cape. 



1895. On the production of essential oils at the Cape as a petite cult lire. 



1896. On the possibility of utilising Euphorbia caoutchouc. 

 1896. \\'attle bark and wattle-growing at the Cape. 



