SOME ADAPTIONS OF SOUTH AFRICAN 

 PLANTS TO THE CLIMATE. 



By R. Marloth, Ph.D., M.A. 



[Read Wednesday, Febeuaby 26th, 1890.] 

 Every living thing must be fitted to its environments or else it will 

 cease to exist. This truth is so obvious with regard to animals that 

 rt hardly needs illustration. The fish is adapted to its life in the water 

 as the bird to the air, and many peculiarities or special adaptions in 

 the organisation of certain animals are regarded with interest even by 

 the general public. 



Few people, on the other hand, are aware that the vegetable 

 kingdom illustrates the same law in no smaller degree, and that it 

 does so is not surprising to us. While the animal is free to move 

 about and to seek its shelter, the plant, which is also a living thino-, 

 has to endure the extremes of the climate on the spot where fate has 

 placed it, and no life, whether animal or vegetable, is possible without 

 water. It is not only the principal constituent of the sap of plants, 

 and hence indispensable to all juicy parts, but during the growth of 

 plants it is also necessary for the production of organic substance. 

 The greatest part of the result of assimilation, whether it be finally 

 turned into cellulose, starch or sugar, consists of carbohydrates, com- 

 pounds which in respect of their percentage composition are carbon 

 plus water, the former derived from the air, the latter from the ground. 

 In regions with permanently moist soil or sub-soil, the plants require 

 no special adaptions to secure the necessary amount of water. In 

 localities, however, where the supply is irregular, only "such vegetation 

 can exist as is capable of surviving the drought. The means of 

 resistance against the danger of dying by thirst are manifold, and it 

 has been one of the greatest charms of my travels in South Africa to 

 study the vegetation with regard to this question. 



There is a large number of plants which have adopted the method 

 of the badger ; they produce their leaves, grow and accumulate organic 

 substance during the rainy season and retire into the ground when it is 

 over. Some of them also flower at the same time, thus accomplishing 

 their yearly life. Others, concentrating at the period of rain all their 

 energy on the formation of material, leave the display of their beauty 

 for some later time when everything around them is dry and dead^ 

 To the former class belong most of our Gladioli, lovely Irideae, 

 Amaryllideae, Liliaceae. Oxalides and Orchids, which turn our 

 so-called winter into a most beautiful spring — at least to the visitor 

 fiom northern Europe— and these are principally the plants which 

 have gained for the Cape the designation of " the paradise of flowers." 



