48 
NATURE NOTES 
more unpromising for a beautiful flower could hardly be 
imagined, and yet for a short period in the middle of Spring 
some of these hills are turned into a dream of glory by the 
bursting out into flower of a little recumbent and apparently 
despicable plant ( Grielum ), which is our best representative of 
the rose family. Its large yellow bloom is a worthy rival of the 
white dog-rose, and as far as I know, it grows nowhere else 
than in these almost inaccessible sandy wastes. 
In the Cape Peninsula we are, I believe, richer in orchids 
than any other part of the world, but with few exceptions these 
orchids take a deal of searching to discover. In fact, as an 
unsympathetic and irreverent unbotanical friend of mine re- 
marked grumblingly, “ These orchids are very awk’id things 
to find ” ; but what a delight they are when found ! Take the 
little spider-orchid, the Bartholina pectinata. It is the sweetest, 
the daintiest, and the most economical plant in existence. It 
nestles in the shadow of one of the larger shrubs, and unless 
you stoop you will not find it. Its dear little bulb, not much 
bigger than a pea, produces one little round leaf which lies flat 
on the ground and is thoroughly protected by silvery hairs. 
Then a slender stem, similarly protected, thrusts itself up to 
its full height of four or five inches, and on the top of this there 
is poised a perfect dream of ethereal loveliness. The lip of the 
flower is large in order to attract the little insects for which it 
has been specialised, but if it were also heavy, it would be too 
much for the slender stalk, so the lip is divided into nine or ten 
slender fingers, white and delicately traced with purple. This 
little plant, which looks as frail as if a breath would blow it 
away, is nevertheless so hardy that once I sent a specimen of it 
packed in a cigar box, and after five days’ jolting in train and 
postcart it was taken out of the packing perfectly uninjured and 
lasted in water for a fortnight after that, sitting in state, as it 
were, and receiving a continuous stream of admiring visitors. 
Now if one of your greenhouse men were to offer to show me 
this spider-orchid growing in a pot, I should of course admire 
his ingenuity and skill, but I would say to him — “ Show me 
something from Peru, where I am never likely to go, or one of 
the beautiful monstrosities of your own invention, but don’t 
degrade my little Bartholina in my eyes by taking it away from 
all its reasons for existence.” 
In a country of such genial climate as ours, which now has 
commercial relations with all parts of the world, it is not 
surprising that many of the plants which have been acci- 
dentally or purposely introduced have made themselves at 
home, or even run riot in the land. The oak and the pine I 
have already mentioned as being at home, and very welcome 
they are ; and I have already branded the prickly pear as a 
nuisance. The Australian wattles have also come to stay on 
their own account, and amongst shrubs there is the Physalis 
pemviana, which has not only swarmed over the whole country, 
