valleys are not deep there are no winter mists. Dew is copious in its 

 fall on most nights. The temperature never falls below freezing- 

 point, except on rare occasions. Frost occurred at Somkele this year, 

 and a native who had lived there all his life stated that he had never 

 seen it before. During summer the heat is excessive, being intensified 

 by the sandy soil ; and even in July the days are hot, and the nights 

 exceedingly mild. 



III. VEGETATION. 



It was unfortunate that our survey had to be made in mid-winter, 

 as at this time the necessary preliminary of floristic work was 

 extremely limited in extent; only towards the coast and along river- 

 beds were there any plants in flower, and these probably not represen- 

 tative of the flora as a whole. Nevertheless, the plants which were 

 collected were sufficient to illustrate several suggestive ideas, and to 

 indicate that a more intensive survey at a more suitable season might 

 be of considerable interest from the purely floristic standpoint. None 

 of the trees were in flower, but we are indebted to Dr. T. R. Siin for 

 naming not a few of them from leaf and fruit specimens, and also 

 for naming the ferns and the mosses. As intensive floristic work in any 

 one district was impossible, we attempted to compensate for this by 

 covering as large an area of country as possible with the means and in 

 the time at our disposal. For these two reasons the following account 

 of the vegetation is extensive rather than detailed. 



(1) Thorn Veld. Practically the whole of the region under 

 survey which does not possess a sandy soil may be classed as thorn 

 veld. All the country lying along the foot of the TJbombo Mountains, 

 the aiea drained by the Umsunduzi River, and the Hlabisa Hills 

 are covered with thorn veld. The route which we followed between 

 the Hluhluwe and the Munywane Rivers lies along a boundary line 

 separating the thorn veld on the Avest from the sand veld (see later) 

 on the east. South of the Hluhluwe the thorn veld extends farther 

 east than the road. 



This type of vegetation is well known in Natal, and in Zululand 

 scarcely differs from what it is there. The soil is everywhere of the 

 dry, hard-baked type; the dominant grass is Anthistiria imberbis (in 

 Sinde), with numerous species of Andropogon, Eragrostis, 

 Sporobolus; the dominant trees are Acacia spp. (A. horrida, A. 

 arabica, var. kraussiana = A. benthami), and in moistened places A. 

 caffra, while Sclerocarya caffra is very common in many places, and 

 also a tree Euphorbia (sp. near ing ens). The trees grow closest 

 together along the country lying just beneath the western mountain 

 boundary and near the river. All the trees found in the open veld 

 are found growing along the rivers, which form bases of colonization 

 from which the trees migrate into the stretches of open country lying 

 between the rivers; consequently the trees grow sparsely scattered in 

 country midway between two rivers, and densely near each river. 

 The natural succession, as Prof. Bews has shown, is towards a thorny 

 scrub, which stage, however, is rarely reached, owing to the effect of 

 grass fires the grass (Anthistiria imberbis) grows to a considerable 

 height everywhere in the thorn veld and burns readily. Scarcely a 

 night during winter but that a grass fire is seen somewhere on the 

 veld, and, as the country is not divided into farms, a single fire may 

 rage for three days before it dies out. In the less populated districts 

 this factor does not operate to the same extent, and it is precisely in 



