VI 
PREFACE 
future students of this subject, the difficulties that have 
hitherto presented themselves ; and which will give, in a 
collected form, most of the particulars required. 
Such a work must necessarily be in part compiled from 
previous writers, and I have, throughout, given the authorities 
quoted, and have collated as far as possible. 
The whole of the descriptions, however, as well as the 
figures, are my own, and taken from live specimens where 
these were obtainable, or from dried specimens in my own 
herbarium or in some of the leading Cape herbaria. 
In the cases where all these were defective, the authorities 
of Kew have, with their constant willingness, assisted greatly 
by sending specimens collected in this or other countries of 
what were known or recorded to be South African species, 
and I have not hesitated to describe and illustrate from 
foreign specimens species recorded from South Africa, but 
concerning whose occurrence I have doubts, in order that 
attention may be drawn to these and their presence confirmed 
or otherwise. 
The earlier chapters are reproduced from my Handbook 
of Kaffrarian Ferns , but altered so as to meet the wider 
area; and most of the plates prepared for that work are 
again used here. 
The synonyms given are mostly what occur in works on 
African plants, and do not by any means exhaust the list of 
names applied to some of the species. 
Without a visit to Europe, it is of course impossible for 
me to verify all these synonyms, but I have found occasion 
in a good few cases to differ from Kuhn, mostly regarding 
species originated by Pappe and Rawson. 
The area dealt with in the first edition of this work was 
that portion of Africa lying south of the Tropic of Capricorn, 
