392 APPENDIX. 



owing to their greyish-green colour or dull -coloured 

 indumentum. The season of rest is here the dry season, 

 viz., March to May ; but as soon as rain falls vegetable 

 life is at once roused to activity, notwithstanding this 

 being here the cooler portion of the year. 



This Region is the home of what has long been known 

 as the Cape Flora, and has for the most part yielded the 

 large quantity of " Cape plants " of English gardens — 

 Heaths, Pelargoniums, Oxalids, Aloes, Iridaceous and 

 other bulbs, and many other handsome garden plants. As 

 compared with the succeeding Regions its most striking 

 peculiarities are the comparative abundance of Rutaceae, 

 Bruniaceae, Ericaceae, Stilbeae, Proteaceae, Penaeaceae, Iri- 

 daceae, Restiaceae, and terrestrial Orchids, and of certain 

 genera of other Orders — namely, Pelargonium, Oxalis, 

 Phylica, Aspalanthus, and Cliffortia, — and also the great 

 deficiency of Rubiaceae. But most remarkable of all is 

 the striking affinity of this Region with South-West 

 Australia, a fact which has led to Sir Joseph Hooker's 

 conjecture that the Australian and South African Floras 

 have probably a common origin, derived from ancestors 

 inhabiting a vast antartic continent, of which the greater 

 part has been submerged. 



The South-Eastern Region 1 occupies another strip, 

 from 60 to 100 miles wide along the east coast, from near 

 Port Elizabeth northward. Owing to the warm and moist 

 climate caused by the currents of the Indian Ocean, the 

 Flora presents a more sub-tropical character than that of 

 the last-named Region, and the general aspect of the 

 vegetation is greener and more luxuriant. In this 

 Region the temperature is higher and the rainfall greater 

 and forests are more abundant, than in the South- Western 

 Region. But the most striking climatic difference of the 

 two Regions is, that the South -Eastern has chiefly 

 summer, the South- Western chiefly winter rains. 



1 Mr. Bolus terms this the Tropical African Region, but I venture to suggest 

 the above name as more distinctive. The affinity with Tropical Africa is only 

 partial after all, and that country may be just as readily sub-divided as South 

 Africa. 



