370 



Maga 



t. 7877, 1903, which is quoted below) is now removed, and one 

 locality, at least, defined. 



Nelspruit is situated approximately in 25° 30' S. Lat. and 31° E. 

 Long.^ in the Barberton District of the Transvaal, so that the 



original source of S. grandis may now be regarded as Subtropical 

 Africa, although it is still possible that it may exist in some of 

 the neighbouring Tropical areas. This is by no means unlikely 

 when the cosmopolitan character of some of the species of 

 Sansevieria in Africa is considered, and also the readiness with 

 which the plant under consideration may be propagated. 



The plant appears to be well established — if not wholly 



naturalized — in Cuba, and it is a matter of some uncertainty 



as to how it got there. It may be worthy of note, that the 



Portuguese settlements in Africa were closely associated with 



Cuba in the early days of its colonization by the Spaniards (from 



1511 onwards). As the Spaniards increased in numbers the 



conquered West Indian aborigines, whom they employed, died 



out with extraordinary rapidity, and the introduction of the 



stronger African negroes was proposed to take their place at 



the mines and on the sugar plantations ; King Charles of Spain in 



1">77 authorizing their importation from the Portuguese African 



settlements. It is within the bounds of possibility that the 



company to whom the introduction is attributed, found the plant 

 already there. 



Sansevieria grandis was first described in the Botanical 

 Magazine, and Sir Joseph Hooker's account is reproduced here : 

 this, together with the information supplied by Mr. Hall, will give 

 the sum of all that appears to be known about this plant up to 

 the present time. 



"Stem, a stout Iris-like rhizome. Leaves, few, very large, 

 rosulate, sessile, unequal-sized, the largest three to four feet long 

 by six inches or more broad, spreading, obovate-oblong, acute or 

 mucronate, rigidly coriaceous, flat, dull green, crossed by broad 

 bands of much darker green on both surfaces, margin with a very 

 narrow, red-brown, cartilaginous border. Scape about two feet 

 nigh stout, green, bearing a few distant, narrow, lanceolate 

 sheaths. Panicle two to three feet high, erect, narrow, spicfform, 

 dense-flowered. Bracts minute, ovate, acuminate, scarious, three- 

 tiowered. Flowers sessile, or very shortly pedicelled, erect, about 

 two inches long, pure white. Perianth-tube cylindric, inflated at 

 the base ; segments about as long as the tube, linear sub-acute, 

 aorsally costate. Stamens as long as the perianth segments. 

 Anthers linear-oblong. Style slender, stigma minute, capitate. 



+ u " o hlS T e J7 n , oble s P ecie * of ' Bowstring hemp ' was presented to 

 the Royal Gardens, Kew, in 1896, by the Royal Botanic Society, 

 Regents Park, who received it from Dr. Heath, F.L.S., of 

 ijbury Street, London. Referring to that gentleman, he told me 

 tnat roots of it were given to him by a Cuban merchant, who 

 intormed him that the plants had been introduced into Cuba by 



w ^ n 7 med t0 grow lt for its fibre ' and that the company 

 naa tailed owing to the cultivation of the plant not having been 



wlSf n m f P ractical manner. The fibre, he adds, is fine, 

 ntW J *' . V* 0f extraor <linary strength, far exceeding any 

 other, a few strands of it being sufficient to hang a man. 



