January 3, 1895] 



NA TURE 



^35 



scattered over a difficult mountainous region. Of these forests, 

 the Stale possesses 54,000 acres, and 27,000 acres are in a terri- 

 tory assigned to the indigenous inhabitants of the country. The 

 Government has decided that in the mountains the action of the 

 Forest Department will be restricted to the Slate forests. They 

 contain many species ; Podocarpiis Thuttber:^ii and P. elongala, 

 both known as yellow-wood, are the commonest, and their wood 

 resembles that of the European spruce. At present the great 

 cost of transport prevents the profitable working of yellow- 

 wood. Amongst the remaining species, the two most valuable 

 trees are stink-wood {Ocolea buUatd)^ so named on account of 

 the bad odour of freshly-sawn wood, an evergreen iauraceous 

 species with a beautiful brown heart-wood, which is hard and 

 tough ; and sneeze-wood, PUroxyton tttiU, an ally of the horse- 

 chestnut. These woods are also highly esteemed in the Cape 

 ' Colony, especially for cart and wagon making, and can be 

 ■ worked at a profit even from these remote mountain forests. 

 I Unfortunately these two species are only found here and there 

 in the forests, and there is no large supply of them. 



In the year 1891-92, the sale of wood by the Natal Forest 

 I Department yielded /'725, while the expenditure was ^1942, 

 I partly for establishment and partly for the survey of the forests. 

 Owing to the small area of forests available, and the remote 

 position of the State forests, Mr. Fourcade strongly recom- 

 mended that plantations should be started near the towns and 

 railways. Past experience with the blue gum (Eucalyptus 

 globulus) is favourable for the success of this tree in Natal. At 

 Arambi, near Ootacamund in the Nilgeri Hills in India, l^is tree 

 attains a height cf 107 feet in nineteen years, and yields 8696 

 cubic feet per acre. This enormous production of 457 cubic 

 feet per acre annually was attained in latitude ri N. at an 

 altitude of 7426 feet above sea-level. 



In the higher latitude of Natal, a similar climate to that of 



Arambi is found at 2275 feet above sea-level, and, according 



to Mr. Fourcade, mixtures of Eucalyptus globulus, lougifolia 



and rostrata give an even higher yield near .Maritzburg than at 



Arambi. Mr. Schiipflin doubts whether this will be the case ; 



but, at any rate, the gum-trees will give a large yield, and if 



, the wood were only tit for fuel a considerable pecuniary return 



! would be obtained. Several of the gum-trees, however, yield 



'splendid timber, and especially £. rostrata, the red gum of 



Siiuhern Australia. 



limber imports into Natil average in value ^180,000 a 

 'ye.ir, so that, as the indigenous lorests are small, much 

 subdivided, and unfavourably situated, the State is clearly 

 called upon to plant up a sufficient area of the .Stale lands. 

 Mr. Fourcade stales that the land necessaiy for these plania- 

 'tions can now be purchased cheaply, and Mr. Schopflin 

 c iiiiienced planting operations. This useful measure is now 

 al luloned, owing to want of funds, and the plants in the 

 Slate nurseries will be sold. 



I Besides Eucalypti, several Australian acacias succeed 



""'mirably in Natal^ especially A. dccurreus and viollissima : 



: bark is rich in tannin, and a plantation of 1200-1500 acres 



lese trees has been started by a private company. Near 



neighbouring Transvaal gold-lields, .lustralian trees are 



•■"Z, planted on a large scale to supply mine-props. 



I he length of rails in Natal is about 625 mile;, and the 

 nnuntain forests will yield a portion of the necessary railway 



;-lcepers. "S'ellow-wood must be kyanised, as has been done in 

 Ihe Cape Colony, and kyanising works can easily be established 

 1 n Natal, and wood from gum-tree plantations ought to supply 

 lit balance of the sleepers required. 



II is evident that Natal cannot possibly prosper without a 

 Korest r)epartment, and the colony will have cause to regret 

 laving abandoned the attempt to form one, after such an 

 jxcellent beginning has been made. The Government wished 

 o retain Mr. Sch'jpllin's services up to March 31, 1S94, but 

 vould not undertake to employ him after that date. Under 

 hese circumstances, he was obliged to resign his appointment 

 ast September, in order to return to the Baden Forest Service. 



W. R. Fisher. 



THE FERTILISATION OF " LORANTHUS 

 KRAUSSIANLS" AND " L. DREGEI:' 



j^IIE parasite Loranthus Kraussianus grows on the coast here 



on the tree Chcrtacmc Meytri, and as three of these trees 



;row within a short distance of my house, I have this season had 



|. good opportunity of observing the rather curious mode of its 



fertilisation. In the flower bud the corolla segments adhere 

 along their whole length, forming an upright cylinder, of about 

 an inch long, of red and white, thus getting the not inappro- 

 priate colonial name of ''lighted candles. " The flowers grow 

 in close umbels, so close together as to give quite a reddish 

 tinge to the host tree. After a little time five slits appear about 

 half-way up the upright cylindrical corolla, and these slits are 

 about one quarter the length of the cylinder. The anthers 

 occupy almost the extreme tip of the cylinder, and are pressed 

 against each other by the closed lube of the corolla (the cylinder 

 aforesaid), the actual tip being occupied by the capitate stigma. 

 If a needle be inserted into one of the slits of the corolla with 

 a downward movement, as if to seek the nectar at the base, it 

 causes the tube to split with some force, and at the same time 

 the anthers are quickly and forcibly released from their pressure 

 one against the other, and fly downwards violently, scattering 

 practically all the pollen they contain by the one movement ; 

 and at the same time the stigma, from being upright, springs 

 to an angle of, say, 40deg"ees on one side quite clear of the now 

 split corolla tube. I found by microscopic observations of a 

 number of stigmas just at this stage, that only in a small pro- 

 portion of cases (I only found one) did any of tb.e triangular 

 pollen actually reach the slignia by the act of explosion, 

 although the style was fairly thickly peppered. These flowers 

 are constantly being visited by large numbers of the commonest 

 coast sunbird (Citiiiyris olivaceous), a very active and hard- 

 working, though not very brightly coloured, member of the sun- 

 birds. A little quiet watching will show the birds at these 

 flowers splitting open flower after flower, and getting head and 

 bill covered with pollen in moving about, undoubtedly fertilising 

 the capitate receptive stigmas (in the receptive stage protruding 

 free from the corolla tube) of other and older flowers. After 

 seeing them thus at work, the question arose whether without 

 their aid the bursting of the flower happened. The negative 

 evidence was that although I had observed for many hours, I 

 never saw a simple flower voluntarily explode ; but to check this. 

 I put a net-bag over a small branch containing, say, 80 to 100 

 healthy flowers. I fou.id that when thus protected hardly a single 

 flower got to a further s:age than having the splits on the corolla 

 tube ready for the outside aid of the sunbird to enable them to 

 perform the next function, viz. explosion. Actually none ex- 

 ploded, :ind, as a consequence, not a single flower within the 

 b.ig set seed. They seem to be quite sterile without outside 

 help, the anthers dehisce, but at a level below the capitate 

 stigma, and as the corolla tube is generally upright the pollen is 

 lost even as a self-fertilising agent. After careful watching, I 

 feel sure sunbirds are the only eflTeciive agents in the fertilisation 

 of this plant. At first I never observed bees visiting it, and 

 actually made a note to the efl^ect that they did not do so ; but 

 at a later date they came in good numbers. They seemed 

 simply to follow the birds, and take any nectar left by them in 

 the exploded floHer=, and very seldom, and then, I think, only 

 by a happy chance themselves caused the explosion. I did not 

 observe any other insect visitors, so that it would appear this 

 plant is dependent on C/«/y'W..; and there is an element of irony 

 in it, for from the berries of this plant the boys make bird-lime, 

 and the energetic efforts of these lovely little birds are towards 

 the perpetuation of the means by which they are often made 

 captive. It would be interesting to know how far the dift'erent 

 individuals of Loranthus on the one tree are in the position of 

 independent individuals of terrestrial species (pollen from an 

 iiiiiepciuUut individual being necessaiy lor the most perfect re- 

 sults of cross-fertilisation), or whether the fact of having a 

 common host approximates them in this respect to the position 

 of one plant, and whether to get the best results of cross- 

 fertilisation pollen should be brought not from flowers of a 

 diflerent individual on the same host,but from plants growing on 

 a different tree altogether. To carry on the life-history of this 

 pUnt, my friend Mr. Harry Millar, of Durban, informs me that 

 the berries when ripe are taken by the little tinker bird (Bar- 

 betula pusilla), who eats the coveriii<; oi ^.hs berry, and rejects 

 the seeds and viscid matter around them, and to cle.ar away the 

 latter bangs the berry with his bill against a tree, where the 

 seeds adhere with the viscid substance and germinate. I may 

 say that Mr. Millar states th.it in shooting these birds, as speci- 

 mens, he often finds the head and bill covered with pollen. _ I 

 am informed that another sunbird (Ci««jr;j Vtrreau.xi) \-h\ls 

 this plant, but as it is of the same habits as C. olivaceous, the 

 results of its vi^ils, as far as iheplaht is concerned, would be the 

 same. 



NO. I3I4. VOL. 5 l] 



