PREFACE. 
THE 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 who have made themselves 
acquainted with the floras of their own districts ; 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 themselves 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 Some unpublished species 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 not yet half done, and has small 
chance of being completed in the near future. 
The present work is one step in that direction. By 
255081 . 
