SOME FLOWERS OF EASTERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 13 



the very brightest of blue Michaelmas daisies, which grows in quantities 

 on Table Mountain just above the houses, fades gradually on the way 

 to Caledon, till it is quite white when it arrives there. 



The train crosses the Drakensberg very slowly over Van Rienen's 

 Pass, between Ladysmith and Harrismith, by a series of zigzags, so 

 that one has good opportunities of seeing the flowers on the banks, 

 though not of getting down to gather and examine them. Here the 

 Aristea, which is of the most brilliant blue in the Transkei mountains is 

 quite pale ; the tall gladioli are pale too ; and Hyacinthus candicans 

 (properly Galtonia princeps), which with us retains the greenish colour 

 it has in the Transkei and the Eastern Cape Province, whence it was 

 brought, is of the purest white. It has also a larger flower bell, and 

 is really much prettier than ours. I have seen it also grown in a tin 

 at Bloemfontein. It may be a different species, but as all the flowers 

 in the same part were paler, it would seem as if it only fell in with 

 the rule. Our Hyacinthus candicans grows on the edges of the forests, 

 and on the banks of level streams. 



Driving over the plains near Bloemfontein I have also found the 

 lovely little Aptosimum depressum, which is of the brightest blue on 

 the Karroo, quite a pale dull grey. Colour varies much more in 

 Africa than in Europe. Yet it should not be altogether ignored as 

 a distinction, for some flowers, especially the scarlet, never vary, 

 or at least only vary in shade. 



As to the scarlet and crimson colours, especially those of the 

 aloes and Kafir boem (Erythrinum) , no paint can give it. They seem 

 alive and to give out living flame. And though we may be able to 

 grow and flower some species, we cannot reproduce their wonderful 

 colours. We can provide as much heat as we like in our plant houses, 

 but we cannot provide the fierce sunlight which brings out the colour. 

 Take, for example, that big flower, Haemanthus grandiflorus. I drew 

 two examples growing side by side — one under a bush, the other in 

 full sun. The cup, composed not of petals, but bracts, is the brightest 

 and deepest crimson in the sun, and firmly upright. The flower looks 

 like a great tulip. In the shade the bracts are larger, and are green, 

 and they fall over and hang down. It does not look like the same 

 flower, yet it is, and this is only the effect of the sun and its absence. 

 If this is the result in the home itself of plants, we need not be surprised 

 at it here (figs, n and 12). 



Our blue Agapanthus is an instance of varying shade but not of 

 colour. Near Umtata, in Tembuland, it grows on the precipices above 

 the river an enormous size and the same blue as we see here. This 

 is the usual colour. But at Kokstad, in East Griqualand, I have 

 found it rather smaller in size, and of all shades, from the very darkest 

 blue to the palest grey, though not white. Nothing can be more 

 beautiful than a clump of perhaps fifty such blossoms together on 

 the rocks. The smaller kind {A. minor), however, never varies from 

 its medium dark blue wherever I have seen it over a very large area. 

 One well-known Cape botanist declared to me that it was only an 



