214 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 



referred to the same plant, and he gives consequently the latter 

 name as a synonym of the former. That is a mistake, for Baker's 

 identification of Bolus's plant as A. pluridens is correct, and 

 A. succotrina is quite different from it, as the fresh specimens and 

 photographs of both species which I am exhibiting here will show. 

 The foliage is quite different, for the leaves of A. succotrina are erect 

 with a slight backward curve at the end only, while those of 

 A. pluridens are quite recurved, almost hanging down. There are 

 other points of difference of course, but they are not so easily 

 noticed. 



The specimens of A. pluridens came from Zwartkops, near Port 

 Elizabeth, and those of A. succotrina from the slopes of Table 

 Mountain. It is rather surprising to find that the home of a plant 

 of such conspicuous size and such special interest should have 

 remained unknown for two centuries, although it grows in profusion 

 a few miles outside of Cape Town. So far one spot only is known to 

 me, which, however, is well hidden. It is situated about 1,200 feet 

 above Newlands, on an immense field of boulders which must have 

 been formed by the falling of an enormous cliff from the mountain 

 above. There are hundreds, nay thousands, of boulders of all sizes, 

 some as big as a house, with abysses between them that seem to lead 

 into the interior of the earth. Where the spaces between the boulders 

 have become filled with debris and leaf -mould, trees have succeeded 

 in establishing themselves and are at present overshadowing some 

 large groups of Aloes. These are doomed, for the trees must win in 

 this struggle for existence. But where the boulders are freely 

 exposed to air and light, where the aloes have been able to find a 

 little soil in a crack or on a ledge, they have taken full possession of 

 the place. 



That no botanist or collector of the last century should have 

 come across the plant is evidently due to the difficulty of access 

 to the locality, for it is out of the track of the ordinary rambler. 

 Only mountaineers who want to try the Window Gorge would 

 pass it. 



But it is a spot well worth visiting. The boulders alone are a 

 sight, piled up and spread out over a field several acres in extent. 

 Some portions are overgrown with bushes and trees, and their rotten 

 trunks form dangerous bridges over some of the yawning spaces, 

 but others are occupied by hundreds of these Aloes, adorned at this 

 time of the year with tall spikes of red flowers. 



In conclusion I may add that the only species of Aloe hitherto 

 known from the Cape Peninsula, viz., A. gracilis, grows also at one 

 spot only, which is not far from the station Glencairn on the Simons- 



