President's Address Cxl 
for another volume were placed into the hands of the authorities at 
Kew four years ago. ‘The Council of this Society has done what it 
could in the matter, and were informed quite recently that the first 
sheets have now been sent to the printers. 
A most important work in aid of the study of South African botany 
is the distribution of a ‘Herbarium Normale,’ at first by Professor 
MacOwan and Mr. Bolus jointly, now by the former alone. If one 
considers that complete sets of these plants were sent to the fifteen 
most important herbaria of Europe, America, and Australia, delivered 
free of any charge at London, and that this distribution already com- 
prises 1,600 numbers, the magnitude of the undertaking, and the services 
rendered to South African botany, will be apparent. 
However, not only the flowering plants have received some special 
attention, but also the cryptogams. Mr. Sim has favoured us with his 
‘Ferns of South Africa,’ and a provisional list of the Cape marine alge, 
published in 1893, by Miss Ethel S. Barber, in the Jowrnal of Botany, 
has been of great assistance to the student of our seaweeds. 
This list contains 429 numbers; but many more have been since 
found, for these lovely forms of marine life now have many friends, of 
whom I may be allowed to mention Mr. Leonard Boodle (1890), Mr. 
Scott Elliott, Dr. Becker of Graham’s Town, Mr. W Tyson, Mr. E. S. 
Evans at Durban, Mr. Flanagan, and Mrs. Weber van Bosse from Am- 
sterdam. Several algologists of renown, ¢g., Professors Schmitz and 
Heydrich, are at present engaged in the study of the large amount of 
material accumulated in these few years. 
The attention paid to the depths of the sea has not prevented an ex- 
ploration of the mountain heights, and the interesting finds recorded up 
to the present promise ample reward to further investigators of these 
regions. As the Mountain Club, with its natural history branch, has 
shown such promising activity during the three years of its existence, 
we may look forward to a speedy increase of our knowledge of our 
mountain flora. 
Some progress has also been made in the study of the distribution of 
plants, Mr. Wood having published his list of Natal plants, Mr. Sim his 
‘Flora of Kaffraria,’ while Mr. Bolus’s ‘ Conspectus of the Flora of the 
Cape Peninsula’ is nearly completed. 
Although not South African, I must here mention Professor Engler’s* 
work on the flora of the higher mountains of tropical Africa, as it 
demonstrates to us many interesting and instructive relations existing 
between these regions and our own. Although the former flora is only 
very imperfectly known at present, we already find not less than sixty- 
two Cape species recorded from it, among which are, ¢.g., three species 
* A, Engler, ‘ Ueber die Hochgebirgsflora des Tropischen Afrika,’ 1892. 
