THE FLORA OF PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA. 



By T. R. Sim, F.L.S., F.R.H.S. 



Very large and valuable as have been the collections of 

 botanical specimens received in Europe from time to time, 

 from Portuguese East Africa, there still remains, so far as I 

 know, the absence of any condensed review on the subject of 

 this paper. All other parts of South Africa are fairly well 

 known to travellers, and the flora of each locality is allocated 

 to one or other of the recognised types, but Portuguese East 

 Africa remains so much a terra incognita botanically that in 

 my paper read before this Association in 1905 on the Ferns of 

 South Africa, I had to admit that from this area I had neither 

 specimens of, nor records regarding, any species of fern, 

 though by analogy I presumed many did exist. It was, conse- 

 quentlv, with pleasure that I accepted the invitation of the 

 Provincial Government to visit the Province during" 1908, and 

 report to Government on its forestal and general condition 

 with a view to development, and though the forest flora 

 naturally claimed my first attention, the general flora was not 

 ignored, and the impressions left are recorded hereunder. 



Portuguese East Africa constitutes what is officially known 

 as the Province of Mozambique, and extends along the Indian 

 Ocean from 10° S. to 27° S. From the Zambesi southward 

 it consists of the coast belt 100 to 150 miles wide, compara- 

 tively low and level, and rising only on the Swazi, Transvaal 

 and Rhodesian boundaries. North of the Zambesi and East 

 of the Shire River and Lake Nyasa it widens northward to 

 nearly 300 miles width on the boundary of German East Africa 

 and includes several considerable mountains and mountain 

 ranges westward. A projecting arm includes the low country 

 of the Zambesi valley as far westward at 30° East Longitude. 



There is thus a total range of about one thousand miles in 

 length from north to south, and six hundred miles in width 

 from east to west; quite enough to admit of, and almost re- 

 quire considerable variation in the flora, especially as the 

 southern 200 miles are outside the tropic. 



The Province is, as a whole, the lowland portion of south- 

 east Africa; its rivers mostly cross it from west to east, and 

 are abundant, and of considerable volume, many serving as 

 trade waterways where otherwise communication would be 

 most difficult, and the larger admit ocean steamers for many 

 miles inland, or, if closed by a sand-bar, are navigable inside. 



The whole Province consists either of alluvial flats, rolling 

 country of no great altitude, or rocky mountains, and the soil 

 may be described as nmd on the flats, sand elsewhere, and 

 solid rock on the hills. 



Surface rocks or stones are absent on the flats, and are 

 seldom obtainable in the sandy districts; soil is almost equally 

 scarce on the mountains. 



