xxxii President s Address. [July 28, 



single Semper Augustus tulip-root were quoted at high premiums, rose 

 or fell, just as now do Shebas or Turkey' bonds. So were the Hol- 

 landers florists even in their commercial madness. 



The general impression of the time and its strong bias towards 

 culture of rare and curious plants of other countries is easily gathered 

 from contemporaneous literature. It is not so easy to particularise 

 and ilnd exact record of those who introduced the Cape to Holland. 

 The first notice is that of Justus Heurnius ('-), a clergyman proceeding 

 to the Dutch East Indies. He, when touching at the Cape, collected 

 a few plants, and sent them to his brother. Otto Heurnius, who was a 

 professor at Leiden. From a drawing, probably of Heurnius's own, 

 Johannes Bodteus a Stapel, in his commentaries on Theophrastus (■^) 

 figured and described Orbea variegata, Haw. {^Sta'pelia varicgata, L). 

 the common and sole carrion-flower found on the Cape peninsula, 

 under the inept name of Frit'dlaria crassa. This, then, is the plant 

 which earliest took its station in our published flora. The figure is 

 extremely bad, and will not bear comparison with later ones given in 

 Burmami's Decades in 1738, or in Breynim''s Prodromus in 1739. 



Next to Heurnius's small beginning, we have record of Paul 

 Herman, a botanist and physician of some note, who on his voyage to 

 Ceylon made the usual short stay at the Cape, and, in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the settlement, gathered together a collection which 

 Thunberg describes as PCerharium insigne. After his return he became 

 the professor attached to the Leiden garden, but he did not publish 

 anything bearing solely on his Cape collections. His general catalogue 

 of the contents of the garden contains descriptions and meritorious 

 figures of several Cape species, but there is no allusion to his own 

 share in their introduction. From a reference to them in Breynius, it 

 would appear that such portion of his collections as was intended for 

 Europe was sent to Burgomaster Beverningk, a wealth}^ patron of 

 botany at G-ouda, but the vessel taking the consignment was captured 

 off St. Helena by British cruisers, and the collection lost. 



By following the order of publication of certain celebrated botanical 

 works of this period, one may most conveniently trace the further 

 introduction of our flora into Europe. Of these, the earliest known to 

 me is the Exoticarwm Centuria Prima of Jakob Breyne ('), a merchant 

 of Dantzig, better known under his Latinised appellation of Brey- 

 nius. In this fine folio ("') printed on paper almost as thick as card- 

 board, and in magnificent type, we have descriptions of no less than 

 forty- eight well-marked Cape plants. The author in every case 

 records the source whence they were receivea, and in most instances 

 this is stated to be the before-mentioned Hieronymus van Beverningk. 

 The year in which the specimen, bulb, or seed was sent from the 

 Cape is occasionally noted, and varies from 1663 to 1670. Caspar 

 Commelin, in his Pneladia, or public botanical lectures in tlie Amster- 

 dam garden, speaks of receiving seeds from Dom. W. A. van der 



C') Either he or his brother, the professor, is coiumeinorated by Robt. Brown in 

 "Huernia," a genus allied to "Stapelia." It does not appear how the vowels in 

 the name have been transposed, whether by a printer's error or inadvertence. 



(^) TheophrasU Eresii de histcn-ia plantaruni libri deecm. * * * illustravit 

 Joannes Boda-us a Stapel, M.D., Anistelodanienis. Fol. Anist. 1(5 U. 



(*) Born 1G37 ; died 1697. 



(') Jacobi Breynii Godam-nsis Kxotir;iriun — Conturia Prima, (ii'dani, 1078, iol. 

 i—xxxiv, 1—19(5 pp, tab. 109. Index ct Appendix. The copy in the Cape Town 

 Public Library belonged to the elder (Jonnucliu, and bears his autograi^h. 



