THE SOUTH AFRICAN GERBERAS. 



near Barberton, Aug. 1886, Jameson, 3835 ! 2800 feet, Aug. 1886, 

 Bolus, y6ii ! between bushes on the way to Spitzkop, towards the 

 Komati River, July 1887, Wilms, 763 ! in bushy places at Lydenburg, 

 Nov. 1894, Wilms, y6sa\ 



According to Burtt-Davy, formerly Government Botanist and 

 Agrostologist of the Transvaal, G. Jamesonii, the * Barberton 

 Daisy' or 'Transvaal Daisy,' is common in the '\De Kaap " 

 Valley and at various points all along the eastern slopes of the Drakens- 

 berg Range at altitudes of about 2000-3500 feet ; it grows also abun- 

 dantly on the Government tobacco farm in the Zoutpansberg District 

 about 150 miles north of Pretoria, and is reputed to be abundant in 

 the Middelberg District. Peter Barr alludes to their growth in the 

 Transvaal among magnetic stones of so powerful a nature that on 

 running one of these along the edge of a table, a needle will as quickly 

 follow. 



The discovery of this beautiful and valuable plant is ascribed 

 to the Austrian traveller Rehmann, who travelled through various 

 parts of South Africa in search of plants between the years 1875 and 

 1880 ; but it was many years later ere it was described and named in 

 compliment to the Hon. R. Jameson, then Member of the Legislative 

 Assembly, who found it on the goldfields near Barberton, whence the 

 vernacular name. It was introduced into the Natal Botanic Gardens 

 in 1888 and flowered there the subsequent year, the same year as at 

 Kew, when a cream-orange form expanded in the Alpine House. 

 Now it is difficult to find a place where its merits are unknown, and 

 it is rather surprising that the Americans have not appreciated its 

 possibiHties more. At Los Angeles, in California, it does not do satis- 

 factorily, but perhaps the cultural conditions are at fault. Burtt- 

 Davy mentions that it grows luxuriantly in the Pretoria Gardens 

 at elevations of 4500 feet, withstanding several degrees of frost with 

 impunity, and I have experienced no difficulty in its cultvation outside 

 at the Municipal Botanical Gardens, Cape Town. We are indebted to 

 Mr. Tillett of Norwich for its introduction to England, in whose 

 garden it flowered in 1887 ; but the horticultural possibilities of the 

 species were only fully appreciated by Mr. Irwin Lynch,* whose 

 experiments, resulting in the magnificent race of hardier hybrids f 

 between this and G. viridifolia, it is unnecessary to do more than 

 allude to in detail here. 



The extreme variability displayed in the colour of the flower-heads 

 was regarded at first to be an outcome of crossing, but it transpires 

 that the species is prolix in this respect in its feral state, white, white 

 suffused with rose, salmon, terra-cotta, maroon, pink, peach, amber, 

 yellow and buff having been recorded. The greatest cultural success 

 attained in England appears to be at Ryde, the Isle of Wight, where fine 



* Awarded a First-class Certificate by the Royal Horticultural Society in 

 November 1891. 



t Compare also his article on the " Self-sterility of Gerberas," Gard. CJiron. 

 lii. (1912), 107. 



