Scientific Results of an Hacursion to the Hea Rwer Mountains 91 
me, as I discovered it some years ago on the Great Winterhoek.* There 
evidently exists a flora peculiar to the higher regions of our mountains, 
and although I brought home only two more plants which I had found 
before on the Winterhoek, viz., a new species of Huchetis, not yet 
described, and Protea rupicola, R. Br., which is recorded only from 
Mund’s collections on that mountain, I have no doubt that later in 
the season many more such plants will appear on the Matroosberg. At 
present the summit is still covered with snow, and the higher slopes 
are soaked with icy water; those regions have still winter. 
Soon, however, spring will awaken the plants that are sleeping in 
the cold ground, and the immediately following summer will bring 
forth their blossoms, as it does on the alpine meadows, where the 
lovely Soldanella closely follows the retiring snow-fields, in its im- 
patience often piercing the snowy cover with its tiny blue bells. 
When the slopes of Table Mountain are parched and dry and dead, 
the vegetation of these regions will be in its bloom, and many rare or 
new plants may be found ; among which I expect to see the highly 
interesting Nanolirion Capense, Benth., one of Mr. Bolus’s famous dis- 
coveries. Highly interesting, I say, not because it is in any way 
conspicuous, but because it is the only representative of the genus, and 
that genus has its nearest ally, also a genus with one species only, 
in Australia. Since Mr. Bolus discovered it in 1879, on the little 
Winterhoek, it was found by me near the summit of the Great 
Winterhoek (near Tulbagh), and these are the only two localities 
recorded. 
There are other features in this vegetation of the higher regions 
that remind me very much of the alpine flora; however, I shall be able 
to characterize it better after I have seen it in the proper season. 
Another point of interest is the remarkable difference in the flora 
of the two sides of the valley. 
The Hex River Mountains are a part of the barrier which separates 
two of our best-defined vegetable regions, viz., the South-western 
coastlands and the Karroo. The valley of the Hex River itself still 
belongs to the former, and its lower slopes do not yet show much 
difference from similar situations along the Breede River, but the higher 
parts differ considerably. The first day I ascended the slopes eastward 
of the railway, to a height of 1500 feet above the Hex River Kast 
station ; the next day took me up the western side. ‘The difference 
in the vegetation was most striking, the latter quite similar in its 
character to that of the mountains of our neighbourhood : Proteacez (7), 
Heaths (12), Orchids (9), Restiaceze, Diosmezx, and other isolated 
* Both species have been described since by Mr. H. Bolus, the former as Hrica 
Marlothu, the latter as H. nubigena, in Journal of Botany, August, 1894. 
