INTRODUCTION. 



The history of Botany in Natal extends over a period of less 

 than a century, though many of the Natal plants were collected 

 more than a hundred years ago in the Cape Colony by Thunberg, 

 Burchell and others. The first Botanist of note to visit Natal 

 was J. F. Drege, who, in the year 1832, travelled northwards 

 together with Dr. Andrew Smith, along the Natal coast belt as 

 far as the Umgeni north of Durban. Drege spent eight years 

 altogether in botanical exploration in South Africa, and when 

 he left he took with him, according to Meyer, about 200,000 

 dried specimens belonging to nearly 8,000 distinct species. About 

 the time that Drege visited Natal, Ecklon and Zeyher were col- 

 lecting in the Eastern parts of the Cape Colony, but they did not 

 get further east than the Kei River. 



In 1839 Ferdinand Krauss visited Natal and collected chiefly 

 on the coast belt. In his account of the flora of the Cape and 

 Natal (I846) he divides Natal into the three botanical sub -divi- 

 sions still recognised, viz., Coast belt. Midlands, and Mountains 

 (Drakensberg). 



Other early Natal collectors were Dr. Gueinzius, Vance, Wil- 

 liamson, R. W. Plant and E. Armitage. During the twenty years 

 following the colonisation of Natal by white settlers, botanical 

 collecting made rapid strides, and when the first volume of 

 Harvey and Sonder's "Flora Capensis" was published in 1859, 

 acknowledgment was made to John Sanderson, of Durban (after 

 whom the genus Sandarsonia is named), for valuable collections; 

 to Dr. Sutherland, Surveyor-General of Natal, for small, but 

 carefully selected, collections made in various parts of his dis- 

 trict during hasty professional visits, in one of which he dis- 

 covered Greyia Sutherland!; to R. Hal'ack, of Port Elizabeth, 

 for interesting information on plants of the Natal Colony, ac- 

 companied by specimens. During the same period, Dr. Pappe, 

 the Cape colonial botanist, was forwarding specimens, not all 

 collected by himself, to Harvey, some of which, doubtless, may 

 have come from Natal. 



In the second volume of the Flora Capensis, published in 

 1861 — 2, large collections are acknowledged from W. T. Gerrard 

 and M. J. McKen, Curator of the Botanical Gardens at Durban, 

 jointly and severally. The collections must have been sent sub- 



