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in cultivation in Germany before 1805. From specimens we know 
that this is the C. Alaternoides of the first edition of the “Hortus 
Kewensis (1789) and is the C. polygalaefolia of Salisbury’s Chapel 
Allerton Prodromus (1796). From Willdenow we learn (Hort. 
Berol. 51, t. 51) that a nearly allied species, C. rubricaulis, was 
in cultivation at Berlin prior to 1805, under the erroneous name 
/, polygonoides ; and from specimens we learn that this same 
species, under the equally erroneous name C. Alaternoides, was in 
cultivation from 1820 to 1822 in Paris. But C. rubricaulis was 
not the first species to find its way into our gardens under the 
name of the older C. Alaternoides; sometime before 1810 yet 
another species, C, lava, had found its way to England, there to 
be mistaken for C. Alaternoides and to be figured by Sims under 
that name, 
There is no serious difficulty, when some attention is paid to 
their leading characteristics, in separating C, Alaternoides from the 
particular variety of C. rubricaulis (C. rubricaulis var. grandifolia) 
with which it has, on the whole, been most often confused. The 
mixture of C, Alaternoides with C. africana, Poir., on the one 
hand, or with C. /aza, Eckl., on the other, is less difficult to avoid. 
It is, however, a matter for discussion whether C. Alaternoides 
may not, after all, in spite of the absence of any character readil 
appreciable in the herbarium, be even more distinct from the two 
varieties proposed by E, Meyer and here recognised than it is from 
the various species above alluded to. e only really tangible 
feature, so far as specimens and field-notes go, which enables the 
separation of the original C. Alaternoides, Linn., from E, Meyer’s . 
varieties (3 brevifolia and y angustifolia, seems to be the cir- 
cumstance that the plant of innaeus is a small 
undershrub 1-2 feet high, whereas the other two are shrubs 
7-10 feet high. It will be noted that in the field Burchell, whose 
. Alaternoides, as has been already explained, was really C. 
africana, Poir. (Alaternoides africana, &c., Comm.), judged the 
true C, Alaternoides to be a species distinct both from C. africana 
on the one hand, and from E. Meyer’s two varieties on the other. 
It will be noted further that Burchell has not, in the field, dis- 
tinguished E, Meyer’s two varieties, both of which he actually 
collected, from each other, but that he has applied two names in 
the field to E. Meyer’s var. [3 brevifolia. These names are, 
however, so used by Burchell as to suggest that he may have 
intended to treat his “C. angulata” as only a variety of his 
“C. myrtifolia” and that he may therefore have thought of 
subdividing his myrtifolia along a different cleavage plane from 
that selected by EH. Meyer, More than one competent South 
African field-botanist has expressed to the writer his eonviction 
that there must be something seriously amiss with a systematic 
scheme, elaborated in a herbarium, which treats as conspecific 
the dwarf C. Alaternoides of the Cape Peninsula and the ten-foot 
bush which is so characteristic of the southern coast division 
from Swellendam to Uitenhage. The difficulty in coming to a 
decision on this point is, however, enhanced by the difficulty in 
ascertaining which of the several dwarf species met with in the 
Cape Peninsula is being mentally pictured by a South African 
