380 



'• 



alartos Hildehrandtii in his country garden* on the Island of 

 Zanzibar, with the intention of having a '' Cycad a.venue/^and it 

 was thence, in 1884, that he sent to Kew the fine male and ff^mah^ 

 specimens, from which the two plates, which are shortly to appear 

 in the Botanical Magazine, were prepared. The correspondence 

 on EnccpJiaJartos Hildehrandtii ceased with the letters' advising 

 the despatch of those stems. 



Since then Encephalartos Hildehrandtii has been found to 

 extend in Usambara as far inland as the upper Bonibo Valley (45 

 miles' from Tanga), so that Dr. Kirk\s original surmise that it 

 should extend " beyond rather to the mountains " was after all 

 justified. Here, as well as in the drier parts of the littoral, it is 

 associated Avith the candelabra-like Euplwrhia Nyikae, Saiuevicria 

 (juineensis, and an unnamed Aloe, Other recent records are from 

 Rossako,t about IT miles west of Bagamoyo and from the west 

 coast of Zanzibar Island. WerthJ alludes to it as a chara(*teristic 

 element of the bush formation of the young coral land of Zanzibar 

 Island, ^^ nowhere appearing in musses, but always in scattered 

 individuals or small groups, in a short stem bearing wide 

 dense crowns of spinous fronds. '' Tlie area of this Cycad is 

 therefore, as far as we know at present, confined to a narrow belt 

 on the coast of East Africa, extending over about 200 miles' from 

 Dar es Salam to Mombasa. W'^ithin this belt the ground should be 

 mostly limestone, either Jura&sic or of young coral formations, 

 and only where the belt attains to its greatest width, namely, in 

 Usambara, would it be formed by gneiss or crystalline schists. 



Generation of Heat in the Male Cones. — The fact that heat is 



generated in the male cones of certain cycads has been known for a 

 long time. Teysman observed it in Cyras circinalis in 1849§ and 

 Jul- Poisson in Dioon edvle in 1878.11 Subsequentlj' extensive 

 and accurate records were obtained in 1894 by Professor Gregor 

 KrausIF from Cerafozamia loiigifolia and Macrozaviia Miquelii in 

 Buitenzorg. In this connection it is interesting to note that Kirk 

 had also observed the same phenomenon in Evceplialartos Hilde- 

 hrandtii in 1878, recording on one occasion a rise of temperature 



* Sir John Kirk, to whom we have submitted this article, sends as the 

 following letter with reference especially to his garden at Zanzibar : 



December 7th, 1914. 

 '*It seems strange to go back and find extracts from my letters of 

 many years ago still of use. I was not aware that Sir Joseph Hooker 

 had kept my correspondence. I wish I had preserved the many letters 

 he wrote me but papers soon get lost in the tro[)ics nraongst the many 

 other interests that had to be attended to . . . In my experimental 

 garden on the Island of Zanzibar ... I had a wonderfnl collection 

 of shrubs, trees and flowering plants which I acquired in exchange 

 from many sources, India, Australia, as well as from England, and to 

 this day that garden covering 40 acres still remains and the lofty 

 Eucalyptus trees of several species, iiicluding the ciiriodora, the 

 Mahogany tree, the Para and Ceara rubbers, the Brazil nut, etc., and 

 all that flourish well are well cared for 1>y Miss Thackeray who took 



the place over from me." 

 t Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha, p. 824. 

 t Werth, Die Vegetation d. Insel Sansibar (Diss. 1901) 49, 

 §NederL Kruidkund. Archief. i. (1850) pp. 109-114; ii. (1851) pp. 18:5-184. 

 Il Bull. Soc. Bot. France, xxv. (1878) pp. •2r>3-2r,4. 



t Annal. du Jard. Bot. Buitenzorg, xiii. (1896) pp. 217-251. 



