Nov. 1906. ] ACACIAS IN VARIOUS PLACES. 129 
Where rivers cut their way through a monsoon wood their 
banks are covered with closely set riverside woods. In these 
riverside woods acacias may be present (iv. 7). 
But between Uganda and the coast and round Kilimanjaro 
and Kenia there is elevated land which has plenty of water 
and enjoys a distinctly temperate climate. The flora is also 
of a temperate character, and consists of grasslands on the 
plains and forests on the hill-flanks and sheltered valleys. 
Where this rainfall makes itself felt, the grass, eg. on flat 
or open ground, obtains some advantage and grows more 
luxuriantly. The scattered bushes or trees of acacia and 
other plants are then surrounded by distinct grass, and 
constitute the “ bush-grass steppes ” and “ tree-grass steppes ” 
(iv. A, iv. 7, i. n) of Engler. 
On the other hand, at the meeting-place of temperate 
mountain forest and acacia scrub, one finds mountain steppe 
woods in which the acacias are abundant so long as the soil 
is reddish laterite (v. «), but become much less prominent 
when humus has accumulated and forms a rich black 
soil (v. b). 
The bush-woods on the southern bank of the Victoria 
Nyanza seem, if I can judge from the notes of Dr. Stuhlmann, 
to be not one special association but a mixture of several. 
The so-called savannahs (iv, ») appear to be quite similar to 
what I have seen along the Kagera river, viz. alluvial plains, 
very dry and bare in the dry season, but overflowed in the 
rains. In other words, they are exactly the same as the 
Nile acacia region in Egypt. 
Thus these twenty “associations” seem to me to fit fairly 
well into their places as transitional stages between wood and 
the orchard steppe, or between mountain forest and the latter. 
Turning to South Africa, the desert of the Kalahari, 
Damaraland, Namaqualand, and the Karoo are not without 
the usual border of acacias. These occur in the high veldt 
of the Orange River Colony and Transvaal, where A. robusia, 
etc., grow either in a scattered, pioneer fashion over the 
grasslands, or sometimes in close order, forming light, open 
woods. 
In Cape Colony, one of the views that I remember best 
is that from the top of the Boschberg in Somerset East. 
Looking over the plains, which are interrupted here and there 
