PibA WUL. 
PROTEA MELLIFERA. 
First impressions are ever the most enduring. And whoever has visited South Africa, and 
paid any attention to its vegetation probably includes the beautiful shrub, which is here 
faithfully pourtrayed, among the most vivid of his recollections of the Cape flora, for this 
is one of the first of the native shrubs that catches his eye on landing; and wherever afterwards 
he may wander through the Colony, it accompanies his steps. Rarely, too, does it present 
any other than a refreshing sight, for it continues in blossom for eight or nine months in the 
year ;—and in the hottest season, when every herb is burnt up and most of the shrubby plants 
are drooping, the ever cheerful Sugar-bosch (as the Colonists call it) pushes out its young 
branches, clothed with pale green and soft leaves. The branch in our plate shows two genera- 
tions of flowers and the commencement of a third. At the bottom of the nest of branchlets 
is the head of flowers of the last season, containing, in a safe case composed of the closed 
involucre, the ripened seeds, which lie there awaiting the return of spring, to be scattered 
on the moistened ground. Beneath the old flower-head there sprang, in the early part of the 
present season, a circle of four branchlets, and each of these formed at its top a head of flowers, 
which is here represented in its most perfect state. The crimson and white cups are not 
calyces, but involucres, containing a great many tubular flowers, densely packed together. These 
younger inflorescences are surrounded by still younger branchlets, which will, in their turn, 
form new flowers at their tips;—and thus the bush will continue to enlarge by successive 
forkings, and at almost every fork a head of flowers will be borne. The beauty, therefore, of 
a well furnished bush, eight or ten feet in height, may easily be conceived. And the beauty is 
much enhanced by the order of succession of the flowers, which are to be found of all ages from 
the newly formed bud to the fully opened cup, and the closed brown cones of the former year. 
As the name Sugar-bush would lead us to suppose, the flowers are well stored with honey 
and are the favourite resort of the bee and the Sugar-bird, a small species of Certhia or Creeper 
which represents the Humming-bird in South Africa. These active little creatures may be 
seen flitting about the Sugar-bush—rifling its sweets with their long bills, and then hasting away 
to another bush. But the Colonists do not leave all the honey to the sugar-birds and the bees. 
Large quantities are collected by the farmers wives and converted into a rustic conserve, 
which is very palatable ; and is regarded, in the simple pharmacy of the country districts, as 
being endowed with many sanatory virtues. The larger portion of this conserve is kept for 
home use, but some finds its way to the Capetown market, and is even imported into Europe. 
The Protea mellifera forms a bush, from six to ten feet in height, in shape not unlike a young 
Arbutus. ts leaves are smooth and glossy; those that are full grown, of a rich dark green. 
It is one of the few Proteacee, which grow in society, and it often forms shrubberies of some 
extent. But very frequently the Leucospermum conocarpum (figured in our last plate) grows, as 
already mentioned, intermixed with it in the same thicket. These two shrubs are among the 
