176 Plants and their Ways in South Africa 



it is found at its best. In the East it grows five or six feet 

 high. The leaves are needle-shaped, becoming scale-like in 

 the older plants. The cones are large and hard, formed of a 

 few woody scales. The winged seeds of this tree may account 

 for its wide distribution, although its range of altitude is limited, 

 as it is generally found growing on mountain heights. 



The Order Gnetaceae is represented by one genus, Wel- 

 wifschia. This plant is well adapted for its life in the 

 Damaraland desert, to which it lends an additional weirdness. 

 The trunk is very short, sometimes two or three feet thick, and 

 grows mostly under the soil. The large tap-root extends deep 

 down in the sand. It has but two leaves six feet or more in 

 length, which become split into narrow shreds as they are 

 lashed by the wind. Like other leaves found in deserts, they 

 have a very thick covering. The large two-lobed summit of 

 the trunk bears the crimson cones. The fruiting cones are 

 about two inches long. 



The extensive fir plan talons on the slopes of Table Mountain show that 

 the soil is no less congenial tu them than that of their ancestral homes in 

 Southern Europe. Pimis pinea, the Stone Pine, and P. pinaster, the 

 Cluster Pine, are the species usually found in plantations. The annual 

 rings of some trees cut on the market-place at Cape Town indicated an 

 age of 209 years. 



Angiosperms. 



Sub-class I. — Monocotyledons. 



Section I. — Glwnacece. 



Order Cyperace^, the Sedges or Nut Grass Family. 



This family consists of tufted wiry herbs with creeping 

 rhizoids. Stem 3-angled and solid. Leaves all 3-ranked 

 with an entire sheath. Flowers in the axils of glumes ; 

 perianth of bristles, hairs, or none, in spikelets. Stamens 3 ; 

 anthers basifixed, 2-celled ; ovary i-celled ; fruit an achene. 



Cypcriis. — Glumes in two ranks. C. textilis (Matjesgoed) 

 is used for thatching and baskets. The tubers of C. esculentis 

 are eaten by natives of the north. 



