558 BOTANICAL EXCURSIONS * 
ample-spreading umbel of more than twenty deep crimson 
flowers, on long stalks, which curve gracefully upward, like 
the branches of a chandelier. The Hemanthi, or Blood- 
flowers, plants more singular than beautiful, are very com- 
mon on the Flats. 
Few of the South African plants are more deserving of 
notice than the Profeas, of which there is a great variety in 
the environs of Cape Town. One of the most common, and 
at the same time one of the most beautiful of them, is the 
Sugar-bush,* with its bright green leaves, and large cup- 
shaped flower-heads delicately tinted with pink, green, and 
white. The quantity of honey in these flowers, when they 
first expand, is so great, that by merely inverting them, one 
can pour it out as from a cup; and it attracts swarms of 
beetles, bees, and other insects, which are constantly to be 
seen revelling in its sweets. Another very fine species,t 
abundant in the Kloof, and under the western cliffs of Table 
Mountain, bears flowers, four or five inches long, clothed 
with a kind of glossy black fur, and beautifully feathered af 
the top with tufts of silver-white hairs. But the Protea cy- 
naroides is the most remarkable of all the species for the 
size of its flowers, which are almost as broad as the crown of 
a man’s hat, though the stem is frequently not more than a 
foot high ; their colour is a pale pink. "This plant grows on 
the Flats and on the top of Table Mountain, and ranges from 
the neighbourhood of Cape Town to the eastern extremity of 
the colony. Many other species of Protea and of genera 
allied to it, less showy than these, but very neat in their 
foliage and general appearance, occur in various parts of the 
Cape peninsula, especially near Simon’s Town. They de- 
light to grow in the most barren soils, in loose, dry sand, or 
among sharp, broken stones. 
Some of the Profeas of the Cape are gregarious plants, 
growing usually in great quantity where they occur at all, 
* Protea mellifera. + Protea melaleuca, R. Br. 
1 Strictly speaking, they are heads, or masses of flowers. T 
