54* THE LIVING CYCADS 



Mr. L. Drege, a local botanist, and also with an ample 

 basket, since Van Staadens has no restaurant or store. 

 Thus provided for, we soon reached the cycad locality 

 and began our observations. 



Mr. Rattray had told me that if I got to Van Staadens 

 I might feel an intuition that Encephalartos caffer was a 

 good species, but that I would not be able to give a 

 good reason for the feeling. He was entirely right about 

 the intuition, and I tried to find out what could be 

 responsible for it. 



The stout trunk, seldom more than six or eight feet 

 in height, with its crown of very rigid leaves, makes the 

 plant look like E. Altensteinii, but there seemed to be 

 something a little different. The leaves often curve at 

 the ends instead of curving uniformly throughout the 

 entire length, thus giving the plant a characteristic 

 aspect, but many specimens do not show this feature. 

 The margins of the leaflets have caused nearly all of the 

 discussion. A study of the seedlings of the Mexican 

 Dioon edule had prepared me for a considerable differ- 

 ence in leaf margins in plants of different ages, and it was 

 not difficult to find that the plant under consideration 

 was showing a similar behavior. The leaflets of seed- 

 lings and young plants are uniformly spiny, but as the 

 plants become older the spiny character gradually dis- 

 appears, and in plants two or more feet in height there 

 is scarcely ever a spine. 



Encephalartos Altensteinii is characterized, in the 

 manuals, by its spiny leaflets, but in the East London 

 region plants jnore than three or four feet in height are 

 likely to show this character sparingly, and, as we have 

 already noted, some leaves do not show it at all. As far 



