THE AFRICAN CYCADS 



59 



department of South Africa. In this mild chmate 

 these trees grow nearly twice as fast as they do in Ohio 

 or Michigan. It looks as if large portions of the grass 

 veldt would become forested. I was told that very 

 probably large tracts of the grass veldt had originally 

 been covered with forests, but that the natives had 



Fig. 20. — Euphorbia grandidens on Junction Farm, near Cathcart, 

 South Africa. The largest plants may be nearly 60 feet in height. 



destroyed the trees, partly to clear ground for cultiva- 

 tion, but largely from a childish desire to see things 

 burn. 



A botanist could hardly be expected, to know much 

 about the zoological features of a country, but some 

 things are too obvious to be overlooked. In Zululand 

 there may still be found an occasional hippopotamus 



