Minutes of Proceedings. xxiii 



had killed them all, he was unable to understand this general occur- 

 rence of apparently shrivelled shrubs without a single living one. 

 He took a piece with him and on examining it microscopically about 

 a month afterwards he noticed some green living tissue in the leaves. 

 He immersed the twig in water, whereupon it gradually unfolded 

 its leaves, exposing their bright green upper surface. He had 

 evidently found a kind of resurrection plant, which retains its 

 leaves during the dry season instead of dropping them like so 

 many other tropical and sub-tropical shrubs and trees. The leaves 

 simply rolled themselves up and become appressed against the 

 branches, looking brownish-grey like the bark of the twigs. In 

 that state they remain during winter and spring until the rain 

 rouses them from their winter sleep. 



As might have been expected under the circumstances, one finds 

 no stomata on the lower side of the leaves but only on the upper 

 side. Thus, in the shrivelled state of the leaf its stomata are specially 

 protected against communication with the outer air and transpiration 

 is consequently greatly impeded. 



As the plants had neither flowers nor fruits on them when 

 gathered, he could only surmise from the general appearance of 

 the leaves that it may be a species of Oliffortia or of some allied 

 genus of the order Bosacese. 



The living plant exhibited there that night he obtained through 

 the kindness of Mr. Dowsett, the superintendent of the Bhodes- 

 Matopo park. 



2. The wild rye (Secale africanum Stapf) was recorded for the 

 first time by Thunberg, when he passed through the Eoggeveld in 

 1774. He took it to be a wild form of the common cultivated rye, 

 which fact shows that it resembles it very much indeed, and he 

 mentions that the district had been named after this grass. Since 

 that time no specimens of the plant had ever been gathered, and it 

 was not represented in any herbarium in South Africa until these 

 specimens were found a few weeks ago. For several years Dr. 

 Marloth endeavoured to procure some through the kindness of 

 friends travelling in that district, but it is only now that Mr. Izaac 

 Meiring succeeded in obtaining it for him in the Sutherland district. 

 All his inquiries among the farmers there had shown that this grass 

 is rare, and that the idea that it yielded any grain for the use of the 

 farmers, or even any pasture for the stock was erroneous. 



It is of considerable interest not only because it has given its name 

 to a large district of the country, but also on account of the distribu- 

 tion of the few species of the genus Secale. There are only four 

 species of this genus known, two of them being so nearly allied 



