Plants and their Ways in South Africa 



Fig. 4. — GrapJiis elegans, a pictorial 

 Lichen (natural size). (From Thome 

 and Bennett's " Structural and Phy- 

 siological Botany.") 



paint in many shades of red and brown, grey and green. 

 They, too, have their place in the plant-world, and do their 

 share of the world's work. For ages they had been performing 



their part long before flowers 

 made the world beautiful. Small 

 as they are, they can dissolve 

 and absorb small portions of the 

 rocks on which they dwell. 

 Gradually these plants crumble 

 to dust, which may be used to 

 nourish some less humble plant. 

 Mushrooms "that spring up 

 in a night" bear their fruit and 

 die. Contrasted with these small 

 short-lived plants are those that 

 grow to immense size and live through generations. We owe 

 the oaks and the fir trees that beautify the western part of 

 the Colony to the earliest European settlers, to whose unselfish 

 foresight they stand as lasting monuments. The historical oak 

 of French Hoek has blossomed and shed its fruit for two 

 hundred years, but no date in history records the planting of 

 the famous " Wonderboem " of Pretoria. As its branches 

 have spread out they have sent down their stem-like roots, 

 which support the branches like columns. 



The life histories of the moulds, yeasts, and disease germs 

 have been learned only in recent years, since microscopes have 

 been improved ; but the old Hebrew poets, who watched the 

 paths of the stars as they tended their flocks, studied the trees 

 and flowers ; and we know our Saviour cared for them, for He 

 often spoke of them in teaching His beautiful lessons. We, too, 

 may study them without books and without knowing their long 

 Latin names, though these have their uses. How unfortunate 

 it would be if Johannesburgh or Springfontein had no names 

 when we wished to book our luggage for those places. The 

 long names of plants are not so formidable either, when 

 stripped of their Latin endings. Thus deprived, Macowani 

 reveals our friend-in-need. Dr. MacOwan, and how better could 

 South Africa's authority on orchids be honoured than by 



