HARRY r.OLUS, D.SC. F.L-S. J T^ 



berg and Amatola Ranges- But north of these we are sadly ignorant. 

 The records of the earHer collectors over that vast plateau, stretching 

 from Victoria West to the Wittehergen, will indeed be of service. . . 

 Observers and collectors are still to be wished for at Cradock. Queens- 

 town. Burghersdorp, Aliwal. Richmond, etc-, and over the whole Western 

 Province." And, quoting another writer, he adds : 'At present nil the 

 botanists are Easterns, without exception. . . . Hitherto it has been 

 easy to procure botanical materials from China and Japan, from New- 

 Zealand and Feejee. but not from Table Mountain-'" 



Such was the state of the kingdom into which Bolus entered. 



In the review just quoted, Bokis indicates the hues along 

 which botanical investigation should proceed in South Africa, 

 emphasises the greater opportunities of the resident as compared 

 with those of the traveller, and states his willingness to corres- 

 jwnd with " anyone with a taste for Natural History." This led 

 to an extensive botanical correspondence, which he maintained 

 until the end. In a letter written a few weeks before his death 

 he is able to say that " over the whole of South Africa, from 

 the Cape Peninsula to the Transvaal and even to Basutoland, 

 there have been isolated workers engaged in collecting and investi- 

 gating the flora of the country, stimulated and assisted, so far as 

 may be, by students in tlie more populous centres of the southern 

 coast." It was to himself that a large proportion of these 

 isolated workers looked for stimulation and assistance, and he 

 was never too busy to give them of his best. It is not possible 

 to doubt that the work which he did in this way. which made 

 little show and was tisually unnoticed save by those immediately 

 concerned, has been productive of a great extension of the 

 interest in botanical pursuits throughout the coimtry and of an 

 immeasin^ed addition to our knowledge of its vegetation. 



In 1874 Bolus severed his connection with Graaff-Reinet and 

 entered into partnership with his brother, a stock-broker in Cape 

 Town. He ceased to take an active share in the business in 

 1895. He was thus brought into the Western Province, whose 

 botany had hitherto been so signally neglected, and in which the 

 most productive of his labours were to be spent. He settled 

 first at Rosebank, where his herbarium was once placed in 

 jeopardy by the burning of the thatched roof of his house. For 

 five vears he lived in a house facing the main road near the 

 fountain at Rondebosch. ^Meantime he built the house at Sher- 

 wood. Kenilworth, into which he" moved in ]\Iarch. 1.SS7, and 

 which was his home for the rest of his life. 



Soon after settling at the Cape — in 1876 — he paid the first 

 of a series of visits to Kew. He took with him a large number 

 of specimens from his herbarium for comparison with the Kew 

 types. He made this a practice in successive visits, and to this is 

 due in a very large measure the unique position which the Bolus 

 herbarium holds among South African collections. On return- 

 ing to the Cape after his first visit, he was pursued by misfor- 

 tune ; his boat, the Windsor Castle, was wrecked on Dassen 

 Island, and all his plants were lost. Fortunately he had 

 deposited duplicates at Kew. Shortly after his return he began 



