EEMAEKABLE INSTANCES OE PLANT DISPERSION. 



345 



in the garden. These two plants, however, were the long-styled form, 

 and not short-styled, as all those I found in the orange-gardens at Cairo 

 proved to be, and were doubtless introduced from Malta. Hence it 

 would seem that while one plant was originally introduced from the Cape 

 into Malta about 1806, another has comparatively recently been intro- 

 duced from the same source into Cairo, whether accidentally with Cape 

 plants or intentionally the Director, the late Dr. E. Siokenburg, could 

 not tell me. 



The conclusion, therefore, seems to be convincing that, as the same 

 features, as far as botanists have recorded their observations, appear to 

 be characteristic of all the plants growing throughout the Mediterranean 

 region, they have all been derived from the original specimen first 

 brought to Malta by Professor Giacinto at the beginning of last century. 



That it should first reach the shores of Africa is only what would be 

 expected, as the Maltese have long had communication in trade along the 

 northern coasts.* 



As the plant is never known to ripen its fruits in the northern hemi- 

 sphere, though it does so at the Cape, where all three forms, as well as 

 the "double" one, occur, it may be as well to describe the means by 

 which its extraordinary multiplication takes place, for in Malta it is 

 ubiquitous. It carpets the roadsides as well as all the exposed open 

 ground around Valletta, and might be taken at a distance for turf. It 

 insinuates itself between the loose stones of which all the walls in Malta 

 are composed, and appears at the surface like a green fringe around each 

 stone. It covers the tops of the walls in many places, as well as the lofty 

 fortifications. It not only forms luxuriant borders to the fields, but invades 

 the cultivated soil ; so that when, as is too often the case, the weeds are 

 not uprooted, a field will look as yellow as an English meadow with 

 buttercups. It is propagated entirely by bulbs. If a large plant be dug 

 up in January, growing, we will say, amongst loose stony debris, it will 

 be found to possess a long tapering stem,t throwing off thread-like lateral 

 roots, and bearing minute leaf-scales with small white bulbils at intervals, 

 as well as several larger ones at the crown below the cluster of leaves. 

 The fine thread-like rhizome extends downwards, sometimes to a depth 

 of more than a foot, and proceeds from a bulb of the previous season, 

 from which this vertical subterranean stem has grown upwards. This 

 bulb has outer, brown scales. Sometimes there are two bulbs, connected 

 by the stem, included within the scales. The bulb itself consists of very 

 thick scales, one overlapping the other, a cross-section of a scale having a 

 crescent shape. In many instances, when the plant grows as above, the 

 stem proceeds further downwards like a thread ; but after a certain 

 distance it suddenly increases in diameter, forming a short rod-hke 

 structure (a water-storage organ) about If to 2 inches long, with a bulb 

 at the end. This explains how it is enabled to reach great depths, from 

 which new plants arise in a subsequent season. On the other hand, the 

 great length of the subterranean stem explains how the plant is enabled, 

 so to say, to "climb up " between the stones of the walls, thus accounting 



* The whole number of plants recorded by Ascherson in Tripoli and Cyrenaica is 

 917. Of these there are 217 wild plants in common with Malta, 

 f Not root, as described by Mr. Ball, l.c 



