74 llARin- I'.or.tiS, D.SC, I'.L.S. 



to take a special interest in orchids, a group marvellously repre- 

 sented in South Africa, and which henceforward claimed perhaps 

 the largest share of his attention. As a preliminary to this life- 

 study he prepared at Kew in 1881 a list of the Cape orchids 

 already known*. Jn 1882 he published descriptions of the Cape 

 Peninsula orchids (117 species), illustrated by 36 plates drawn 

 and coloured by himselff. In 1893 the first part of the first 

 volume of the " 1 cones Orchidearum Austro-Africanum Extra- 

 tropicarum," containing 50 plates, was published. A second set 

 of 50 descriptions and jjlates a])peare(l three \ oars later. 'Pl'o 

 second volume, containing 100 plates, was issued a few weeks 

 after his death, the last proof-sheets having been revised by the 

 author on the last day of his life. Rather more than 50 draw- 

 ings yet to be published will complete a permanent record of the 

 skill, enthusiasm and devotion with which he laboured at this 

 difficult group for more than thirty years. 



He took a very sane view of species-making, and regarded 

 it as a necessary preliminary to the further study of the vegeta- 

 tion, which can only commence when the species are properly 

 known and tabulated. In a newly-occupied country in which 

 vast areas have been as yet but little affected by the destructive 

 presence of the F,uroi)ean, the problems of geographical dis- 

 tribution force themselves upon the notice of the student. As 

 early as 1873, he writes: — 



"As till" knowledge of the species of plants which inhabit any country 

 becomes more accurate, so c1(H>s it become possible to trace their rela- 

 tions with those of other similarly known countries; and in the study 

 of the physical conditions, past and present, of such countries, to ascer- 

 t.tin the laws which govern the distribution of plants over the earth's 

 surface-" *, 



To these problems he gave his careful altenlit)n very early in his 

 botanical career. Having studied the writings of his jireile- 

 cessors, and himself made extensive botanical ex])lorations in the 

 environment of Ciraaff-Keinet, in Little Namaqualand, and in 

 the Western I'rovince, he published in 1886 a sketch of the flora 

 of South Africa;;, wliicli was at once accepted as the .standard 

 treatise on the subject. .Sir Joseph TTooker, reviewing this 

 wtM-k * , wrote : — 



"The atteni])! to define the South African regions of vegetation 

 is not a new one; • • . the author of the sketch under consideration 

 is the first who has succeeded in presenting satisfactorily the salient 

 b(>tanical characters of that flora as atTccted by, or in correspondence 

 with, geographical and other pliysical conditions whilst he alone has 



* Jauntijl 0/ lilt' Liunciui Society, vol- xi.x (1882V 



t Trans. S- A. Phil. Soc-, 1882. 



X Cape Monthly Magazine, 1873. [Translator's Introductt)ry Re- 

 iiKirks to translation of E. Meyer's " Commentaires-"]. 



§ Onkial Handbook of the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Town, 1886. 

 tReprinteil in the "Illustrated Handbook of the Cape and South Africa," 

 in 1893. 



1 Nature. Mav 27, 1886. 



