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IN SOUTH AFRICA. 557 
scarlet flowers just peeping above the ground, flourishes in 
moist sand near Muysenberg ; Aristeas and Watsonias adorn 
the Flats; and the bright starry flowers of various Tricho- 
nemas, white, or yellow, or pink, enliven the open ground 
in the immediate vicinity of the town. 
Next to these, the plants of the Orchis tribe deserve especial 
mention. By far the finest of them is the Disa grandiflora, the 
glory of Table Mountain, and certainly one of the most brilliant 
flowers I ever saw ; it grows only in a marshy hollow near the 
south-eastern extremity of the summit of the mountain, where 
it is pretty plentiful among the rushes on the margins of small 
pools and streamlets, in a black, boggy soil. No plant is 
more strictly local. In its colours, it reminds one much of 
the well-known Mexican Tigridia, common in our gardens, 
but its scarlet is far more vivid. Several other interesting 
species of Disa are found on the top of the same mountain, 
and others on the Flats, together with some large and showy 
kinds of Satyrium. One of the most common plants of this 
tribe in the neighbourhood of Cape Town, growing almost 
every where among the bushes, is the Disperis Capensis, 
sometimes called the Hottentot Bonnet, the shape of its 
purple and green flower reminding one of some fanciful 
head-dress. Many other kinds are equally singular in form 
and appearance. This part of the Cape colony produces 
none of those curious plants called by botanists Orchideous 
Epiphytes, which flourish on old moss-grown trees, and 
which belong chiefly to climates at once moist and hot. It 
is remarkable, however, that some of them occur near Gra- 
ham’s Town, where the average quantity of rain is consi- 
derably less than in the Cape district. 
I have already mentioned the Bella-donna Lily, which in 
February and March decorates various parts of the sandy 
Flats with its lovely blossoms of various shades of rose- 
colour. In the sands near Mysenberg, grows another noble 
plant of the same family, the Chandelier Lily,* with an 
* Brunsvigia multiflora. 
