Distribution. 
27 
DISTRIBUTION. 
THE area examined in this work is nominally that part of Conti- 
nental Africa lying south of the tropic of Capricorn. It is need- 
less, however, to state that nearly half of this vast area is still 
almost a terra incognita — even as regards its physical features, 
and much more so as regards its botany. It would be most mis- 
leading to say that the species which have been recorded from 
the Orange Free State, Transvaal, Kalihari, Matebeleland, and 
Mashonaland, are all that exist in them, or even in any way re- 
presentative of what does exist in them ; and the records from 
these parts are merely given here as a quota towards the much 
fuller knowledge of these districts which another decade will likely 
give us. A more correct definition of the area which has been in 
any measure satisfactorily examined would restrict it to a belt of 
country, less than 100 miles wide, stretching all round the coast 
from the mouth of the Orange River to the northern border of 
Natal — 1500 miles or thereby. To this might be added the 
Karoo region, which is known to have only a very limited number 
of species of ferns, and some of these peculiar to it. 
The total absence of information on the ferns of the coast, both 
on the west side, north of the Orange River, and on the east side, 
north of Natal, is very much to be regretted, as many other species 
are known from both coasts further along ; and the same may be 
said of the central region in Mashonaland and Matebeleland, 
drained by the Zambesi, which, as already mentioned, was shown 
by Oates to have a different fern flora at a short distance further 
north. Madagascar has been entirely excluded, though in part 
subtropical. 
In endeavouring to divide South Africa into smaller botanical 
areas, each having its own peculiar flora, the physical features re- 
quire to be taken notice of, and, for plants in general, Mr. Bolus 
