( 213 ) 
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE EFFECTS OF A BUSH 
FIRE ON THE VEGETATION OF SIGNAL HILL. 
By Margaret R. Michell, 
Lecturer in Botany, University of Cape Town. 
(With Plates X to XII and one Text-figure.) 
The practice of burning the veld in South Africa is probably an ancient 
one. According to Dr. Marloth (3), the early Portuguese navigators saw 
bush fires while sailing along the coast of the Cape Province, thus indicating 
that the custom was not one introduced by the early white settlers. 
At the present time there is no exact information as to the effects that 
this periodic burning has on the vegetation, though certain experiments 
in connection with this problem are being conducted at Pretoria by Dr. E. P. 
Phillips of the Division of Botany (5, 6). In South Africa, however, the 
problem is not a uniform one, as the types of vegetation to be found in 
different parts of the Union show fundamental differences. Thus the area 
which Dr. Phillips has under observation is typical grassland, such as covers 
large tracts of country in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, while the 
area with which the present paper is concerned is normally covered with 
sclerophyllous bush, the characteristic vegetation of the south-western 
region. In regions of grassland, as a rule, burning is carried out system- 
atically, year by year, whereas in the south-western districts this is not the 
case, fires occurring at irregular intervals. These latter fires may be due to 
natural causes, but more often they are started deliberately either by the 
farmer who wants young shoots on which to graze his cattle, or by the poorer 
members of the population who, after some time has elapsed, collect the 
dead branches for firewood. It follows from the nature of the vegetation 
that in grassland the fires are more readily controlled than in the bush- 
covered country of the south-west. 
Signal Hill, or Lion Mountain, on a portion of whose slopes the following 
investigation was carried out, separates Cape Town from the sea on its 
western side. As will be seen from the accompanying map (fig. 1), the hill 
runs in a north-north-easterly direction, the highest point (about 2200 feet), 
17 
