SOME FLOWERS OF EASTERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 



15 



and Uganda. The green, or green and yellow, Kniphofia seems to 

 have the same habit. It flowers in the spring, whereas the common 

 red one blossoms in the summer and autumn. In one place near 

 Umtata, in Tembuland, acres of it, of all shades of green and yellow, 

 were growing in a marshy hollow where a small stream winds about. 

 But I have always seen it singly elsewhere. In some of the Kaffrarian 

 marshes there are sheets of pink Chironia palnstris (fig. 13). 



In the spring — that is, September and October— there are sheets of 

 yellow Composites and of Mesembryanthemums, both yellow and red, 

 near Cape Town. But, as a rule, there is nowhere in South or Central 

 Africa, as far as I have seen, anything like the effects of colour pro- 

 duced by sheets of only one kind of flower, such as minor Convol- 

 vulus, marigolds, and pink goat's-foot in the Algerian Atlas, or a wood 

 of English bluebells, or of primroses, or wood anemones, or fields of 

 cowslips or marsh buttercups, or like the acres together of Primula 

 farinosa or blue pansy or Myosotis in Switzerland ; still less such lilac 

 seas as the miles of cuckoo flowers (Cardamine) in the fenceless 

 meadows on the boundaries of Eastern France and Switzerland. 

 Perhaps the nearest thing to the colour of a wood full of bluebells is 

 the blue or purple Plectranthus, which grows in tall, thick masses in the 

 forests of Kaffraria, much as rhododendrons do when run wild in Surrey. 



The great feature of the Cape flora is its endless variety. The 

 ground is literally enamelled with flowers of all kinds and colours, 

 shrubs as well as ground plants. Table Mountain and many parts 

 of the Peninsula and the neighbouring country are truly like gardens. 

 This wealth, however, diminishes northwards, and there, though the 

 flora is both varied and beautiful, it is much more scattered. 



With regard to the distribution of the African flora — taking the line 

 of the railway northwards inland — the genera more peculiar to the 

 Cape, such as Heaths, Proteas, Babianas, Ixias, and other bulbous 

 plants, extend, with varying species, southwards to Cape Agulhas, the 

 real southern point of Africa, and northwards, after a rather barren 

 interval before the range of mountains is reached through which the 

 train passes, through the long valley of Worcester, Ceres, and other 

 towns, to the foot of the Hex Mountains. Here the flora changes at 

 once, and a rugged mountain flora appears. The first wild red Aloes 

 are seen here. 



From these heights the train descends to the Karroo, which is 

 almost entirely clothed with succulent plants, able to retain their 

 moisture through long droughts. In the spring, after rains, there are 

 sheets of colour here from Mesembryanthemums, Gazanias and Zinnias, 

 but at other times the vegetation is chiefly a dull grey-green. This 

 tract extends a long way northwards, beyond De Aar, and eastwards 

 again towards Port Elizabeth. But on the Port Elizabeth line flowers 

 begin again somewhere near Cookhouse, and of quite a different type. 

 Aloes of more than one kind, including the tall A. ferox— Cotyledons 

 — the bright crimson semi-creeper Cadaba juncea, and others not pre- 

 viously seen, grow here — a rich and beautiful variety — and when 



