138 CHARACTERISTIC VEGETATION 



and Restiacece, respectively the sugar-bush tribe, heaths 

 and flowering rushes. The change in the character of 

 the vegetation on passing from the Table Mountain 

 series to another formation is usually very sharply de- 

 nned. From the Bokkeveld Mountains right round the 

 great sandstone mountains of the folded belt, the same 

 or similar shrubs and flowers are found. A most strik- 

 ing contrast to any one who is even slightly acquainted 

 with the vegetation of the western mountains is seen on 

 passing from the Karroo formation in Pondoland to the 

 strip of country near the coast formed by the Table 

 Mountain sandstone ; leaving the monotonous grass 

 veld of the interior of Pondoland one meets with the 

 same flowers and small shrubs that are abundantly 

 found on the western mountains. It is difficult to 

 understand how such a distant outlier can be clothed 

 with the same vegetation as the main area by a process 

 of colonisation and selection by the soil ; probably the 

 plants of the Pondoland coastal plateau arrived there 

 when the sandstone was still connected with the western 

 ranges by the more or less rectangular strip, correspond- 

 ing to the bent ranges round the Warm Bokkeveld, that 

 may still exist off the south-east coast between the 

 Gualana and St. John's Eivers. 



Owing to difficulty of access by road and the general 

 poverty of the soil, there are few farms under cultivation 

 on the sandstone areas. The mountain veld is mostly 

 used for grazing. Very rarely one finds a farm, such as 

 Mouton's Valley on Piquetberg, where many kinds of 

 fruit are grown, wine and tobacco made, and fine plan- 

 tations of oaks laid out on the ground that was no better 



