xlii President^ Address. [July 28, 



TJiunberg", in his preface to the Mora Capensis, says that he went in 

 1774 to Madagascar, where he died of fever, Masson dedicated his 

 work to his royal patron, and in the preface adds : — "■ Still enjoying-, 

 though in the afternoon of life, a reasonable share of health and 

 vigour, I am now ready to proceed to any part of the globe to which 

 your Majesty's commands shall direct me." This roving propensity, 

 unsatisfied after twenty-three years of wandering, was again gratified. 

 Under advice of Alton, he was sent to North America, arriving at 

 New York in 1797. The records of his transatlantic sojourn are but 

 bcaiity. He collected in the district of the Great Lakes, finally 

 settling in Montreal, whence his corresjDondence with ►Sir Joseph 

 Banks continued. At this place he died, December, 1805, at the age 

 of sixty-four. 



As was only fitting, Masson' s name is commemorated in a curious 

 endemic Cape genus of Liliaceee, whose fragrant hyacinthoid flowers, 

 rising in a sessile cluster from the crevice between two broad pros- 

 trate leaves, attract the dullest eye by their very singularity. These 

 are Mmsonioi. 



To keep this paper at all within the limits of an evening reading I 

 must omit reference to the labours of Lichtenstein, Carmichael, the 

 celebrated Burchell, perhaps the most painstaking and accurate of 

 botanical travellers, and Adalbert von Ohamisso, better known as the 

 author of that delightful little extravaganza, " The Shadowless Man," 

 than as a laborious botanist. Two of these have placed their story 

 themselves before the public in works that have become classic, and 

 are therefore well known to general readers. It is not so with humbler 

 men in a lower rank of life. I therefore pass on to some of these, 

 and now for the first time am dealing with matters within the recol- 

 lection of our oldest inhabitants. 



Two years after Burchell left the Cape, arrived James Bowie, in a 

 capacit}^ similar to tliat of Masson, whose successor he may fairly be 

 considered. 



Bowie ('-) was the son of a London seedsman, carrying on business 

 in a humble way at the west end of what is now Oxford-street. He 

 entered the service of the Royal private establishment at Kew in 

 1810, and after four years' work was detached on collecting service 

 with Allan Cunningham, afterwards well known as a discoverer of 

 new Australian plants. They first went to Rio, and remained travel- 

 ling and collecting in Brazil until 1817. Cunningham was then ordered 

 to New South Wales and Bowie to the Cape of Good Hope. Bowie 

 remained here till 1822, collecting and cultivating sufficiently for 

 export to Kew a large number of bulbous and succulent plants, for- 

 warding seeds, and otherwise fulfilling the duties of collector. He 

 states in one of his letters (November, 1826) that almost every Cape 

 plant figured since 1817 was sent home by himself. This is far from 

 being the case, but still his industry contributed largely to the green- 

 house collections of Cape plants then in high fashion. One of the 

 most notable of those he sent home was ImantoplnjJhini Aitom, Hook, 

 the beautiful Cyrtanthoid Amaryllid, well knoA\n to Grahanistown 

 cultivators from its station in the Howison's Boort valley. Bowie, 

 however, for prudential trade reasons, reported it from " Orange 

 Kiver." In 1822 the Parliamentary vote for the corps of collectors 



C) Couiimrc tt yketcli of Howie's life iu Gardener f^' Chronicle, October 29, iSiSl, 



