INTRODUCTION 



There is a bond between the ttien 



From youth about the business of the earth 



And the earth they serve, their cradle and their grave ; 



Stars with their seasons alter ; only he 



Who wakeful follows the pricked revolving sky 



Turns concordant with the earth while others sleep. 



To him the dawn is punctual ; to him 



The quarters of the year no empty name. 



V. SACKVILLE-WEST. 



IN the first place, this book was written for my own satis- 

 faction, for the joy of passing on to gardeners the world 

 over the happiness I have had in growing these treasures 

 from veld and mountain and stream-side. If these rambling 

 notes have the power to stir one South African to grow and 

 develop any of our wild flowers, the book will have achieved 

 some measure of success. There are people now in every part 

 of the country who are planting wild-flower gardens because 

 they realize that (apart from the sheer beauty of the flowers 

 themselves) they are so much more suited to our soil, climate 

 and scenery. As to plantsmen in Europe, the United States of 

 America, Australia and New Zealand, their cry has always 

 been " Give us more seeds and more bulbs, and tell us how to 

 grow them ". I hope the book may be useful to them. 



There are many omissions, I know ; but I have only written 

 about plants that I have actually grown. There is no mention 

 of the great family of the heaths, or of small succulents, or of 

 the many herbaceous things that I might have grown and have 

 not. 



I should like to take this opportunity of thanking Dr. Bolus 

 and the staff of the Bolus Herbarium, who for over twenty years 



