PREFACE 
HE vast and varied flora of South Africa, despite the 
beauty and usefulness of many of its species, has 
always received from the general public an exceedingly 
small amount of attention, and still continues to do so. 
There have been a few men, each of whom has made 
himself acquainted with the flora of his own district ; there 
have also been a very few who have in some measure mastered 
the main features of the whole flora of South Africa; but 
even now the beginner who hopes to receive assistance from 
earlier botanists must soon discover that the plants them- 
selves are much more easily found, than is their written 
history. 
Descriptions of species from many pens and in several 
languages have been scattered through numerous books and 
journals during the past hundred years, but some of these 
are not now obtainable. Some unpublished species named 
in manuscript are known only by single specimens hid 
away in European herbaria, and the work of compiling 
from these scattered data a Flora Capensis , begun in 1859 
by Harvey and Sonder, is only now nearing completion. 
The present work is one step in that direction. By 
taking in hand one group of orders, .and collecting from 
all available sources such information as seemed desirably 
for the end in view, I hope that 1 have been able tp pre- 
pare a work which will lessen to ai' : <pnsid'erable Extent, to 
