218 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 



chiefly on the eastern slopes, large plantations have been made of the 

 common Oak, of Pines, chiefly Pinus pinea and P. pinaster (the 

 Stone and Cluster Pines), and some Australian Eucalypti ; and on 

 the Mats, of Australian Acacice or Wattles. These have been made 

 mostly by the Government Forest Department, and are growing 

 well. All over the suburbs eastward of Cape Town these trees have 

 also been planted largely, and give to the country a forestal aspect 

 which it certainly did not possess before the advent of Europeans, 

 or even until comparatively recent years. Of these foreign trees, 

 though several now produce seed and grow spontaneously, none 

 seem to have established themselves so vigorously as the Cluster 

 Pine, and perhaps some of the Australian Acacice {A. decurrens and 

 A. salicj7ia). The Pine is longer-lived than the Acacice, and more- 

 over almost completely kills out the indigenous undergrowth, 

 yet, when they are planted together, I have observed that the 

 Pine appears to dislike and suffer from the contact more than does 

 the Acacia. 



If one may for a moment give the reins to imagination and 

 suppose that man and his interference were withdrawn from the 

 Peninsula for a few hundred years, it is easy to dream that a conflict 

 might ensue between the trees last mentioned for the mastery of the 

 vegetation of the whole area ; and that whatever the result of this 

 struggle the whole face of Nature would be changed, so far as the 

 vegetation was concerned, to a monotonous and mournful character. 



Vertical Eange of Plants. 



The great vertical range of certain plants on the mountains of the 

 Peninsula should be noticed. The observations hitherto made are 

 very scanty, and more complete investigation will doubtless show a 

 much larger number of similar cases. I give the following list of 

 plants, with a range of 1,000 feet or over, from records made at 

 various times. The headings of the groups, it must be remembered, 

 bear no reference to the actual height of the station of the plants 

 above the level of the sea, but only to the extent of their range in 

 altitude so far as observed or recorded. Thus, Polygala hracteolata, 

 having been recorded at 100 feet and also at 1,800 feet of altitude, is 

 placed in the first group of plants having a range of from 1,000 to 

 2,000 feet. 



