WAYFARING NOTES FROM THE TRANSVAAL 28 
large enclosing bracts form a short sausage-shaped mass which, 
when the fruits are ripe, breaks off from the creeping parent stem, 
when it is free to roll about the veld, and this it does. In wet 
weather the roll relaxes, exposing the —— and it is likely only 
then that the capsules discharge their s 
Crabbea hirsuta (1244).—This fruit wich ‘enclosing bracts differs 
widely in shape from the last-named, forming a flattened globular 
- ss. It separates from the prostrate stem “of the parent, and is 
hen blown aboet the veld. It is probable that in wet weather the 
el cts fold downwards to give exit to the seeds. Here, as in the 
case of Barleria macrostegia, the masses remain tightly contracted so 
long as the weather continues to be dry, or until they encounter 
moist = tig 
red Composites, in which, as so often happens, the ray- 
florets is fein nde ith the male element more or less aborted, it is 
often interesting to compare the style and stylar arms of the ray- 
floret with the style and stylar arms of the eens “9 floret. The 
style of the disc-floret has to strike a compromise between its two 
functions of brush and stigma. In the female ray- ideas where there 
is greater simplicity of function, one may probably more clearly see 
ray-florets will be the earliest fertilized ; their peripheral a is 
also in their favour as exposing them to less cro hg ng. Oth 
probably marks a an advanced point upon such a 
sapetiiay aerial insect-attack one notes how many Gontpostien have 
their thetd effectually fenced in various ways, notably by close 
packing of the florets upon the receptacle; tight spring-light clasp 
of the involucre; glandular emergences upon the corolla-tube ; 
and, — effectually of all, by the pappus, whether barbed or 
glandula 
Little rain falls during the winter months, and so it happens 
that the dead leaves are dry leaves, not undergoing the wet rot of 
moister climates. Where there is little difference of tension between 
the two surfaces of the dead leaf, it may show a simple un Ae 
midri 
along the length of the midrib. Where one side is woolly, the 
urling is usually away om the woolly sid, but exceptions were 
noted. Leaves of the veld with white, woolly under-surfaces may 
thus come to be much more conspicuous in death than in life. 
A small Sueur with ripe gourd of bright yellow, and about 
the size of a hen’s egg, is plentiful upon the veld. The gourds 
appear to furnish food to field-mice or shrews, which gnaw their 
way in to the pulp. One may sometimes see little heaps of PIDs, 
mostly cracked open, at the Polit to their holes. The fittes 
pips would hardly be likely to survive in such case; in the gre a 
scheme of Nature we aied, a fom ash average is ‘aimed at, and 
os 
