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A NOTE ON THE PEINCIPAL SYSTEMATIC WOKK AND 
PUBLICATIONS DEALING WITH THE SOUTH AFEICAN 
PEOTEACE^. 
By E. p. Phillips, M.A. 
(Eead June 21, 1911.) 
The Natural Order Proteacese is a large group of plants almost exclusively- 
confined to the Southern Hemisphere, being found in Australia, Brazil, 
Chili, Guiana, New Caledonia, New Zealand, South Africa, Tasmania, but 
also found in Tropical America and Tropical Africa. The Order is most 
abundantly represented in Australia and South Africa, but no genus or 
species is native of both countries ; species of Hakea and Grevellia, how- 
ever, are cultivated at the Cape, and certain genera, e.g., Lomatia and 
Orites, have representatives in both Australia and Chili. 
The South African section of the Order, with perhaps the exception of 
Brabieum stellatifolium, Linn., forms a very natural group of plants, and 
very early attracted the attention, not only of the early botanical collectors, 
but also of the early navigators by their singular beauty and diversity of 
form. In 1605 C. Clusius " figures a capitulum of Protea neriifoUa, which 
he states was brought from Antolgil Bay, on the east coast of Madagascar, 
in the year 1597. This locality is evidently an error, as the genus Protea 
is entirely absent from Madagascar, the specimen must have been collected 
round the slopes of Table Mountain. The above reference and figure is 
the earliest we have of a member of the Order from South Africa. 
Leonard Plukenet t figures the Silver Tree {Leucadendron argenteum., 
Linn.), and again in 1696 \ makes a reference to " Leucadendros Africana 
arbor, &c.," and refers back to the figure in the Phytographica. (The 
reference to Zanon, " Arbor ferens folia argentea," appears to be to an 
Indian plant and not to Leucadendron argentemn.) Plukenet mentions 
this plant as having been sent from the Cape by Patric Adair, who must 
therefore have been one of the first Cape botanical collectors. Prior to 
the year 1700 many Proteaceae, together with other Cape plants, were 
sent to the Gardens of Holland by the early Dutch settlers, as Jacob 
* C. Clusius, " Exoticorum Liber Primus," 1605, p. 39. 
t L. Plukenet, " Phytographica," 1691, t. 200, fig. 1. 
\ Ibid., " Almagestum Botanicum," 1696, p. 212. 
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