304 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [NOVEMBER 
The rainfall is also very much greater in summer than in winter, although 
the tropics. They get a certain amount of rain during the winter months, 
while at Naboomspruit, with an annual rainfall of 25 inches, usually not a drop 
falls from the end of April to the beginning or even the end of October. 
These two accounts, written by botanists who have made a 
prolonged study of the South African flora, show that the climatic 
conditions in the region where Aloe ferox grows are somewhat 
erratic. Large specimens were seen at Junction Farm in the 
Transkei, near Cathcart, and the negative from which fig. 1 was 
made was taken on the Windvogelberg, overlooking the town of 
Cathcart; but no material was collected. Judging from Mr. GAL- 
PIN’S account, specimens from the Windvogelberg would show 
more sharply marked rings than one would be likely to find in 
plants from the Grahamstown region where this material was 
collected. Both accounts, however, would lead one to expect the 
irregularities which appear in the rings of material collected near 
Grahamstown. Irregularities may be seen in figs. 14 and 15, 
and in fig. 16, where the position of the six rings is marked by the 
numerals 1-6. 
Whether other species of Aloe would show rings or not could be 
determined very easily by one who is within reach of material. A 
few slides of A. pleuridens show a couple of faint rings. Dracaena 
Hookeriana, collected at East London, less than 100 miles south 
of Cathcart, shows secondary wood but no growth rings. It would 
be interesting to see the condition in Aloe Bainesii, the trunk of 
which may reach a diameter of a meter in less than thirty years. 
A specimen of Yucca with a zone of wood a centimeter in diameter, 
growing in the greenhouse, showed no growth rings; but such rings 
could hardly be expected in a greenhouse, where conditions are so 
uniform. One wonders whether the failure to find growth rings 
in woody monocotyls may not be due to the fact that they are. 
mostly tropical and subtropical, out of the University zone, s0 
that observations are likely to have been made upon greenhouse 
material. That there are growth rings in Aloe ferox is beyond 
question, and this is believed to be the first account of such rings 
in any monocotyl. 
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
