Transition to the High Mountains of Tropical Africa. 537 
in the mountain-woods of the tropical and sub-tropical countries. The 
wide distribution is accounted for by the fruits being densely covered with 
hooked bristles adhering to the plumage of birds. 
Sambucus , as well as other Caprifoliaceae, has long been unknown from 
Tropical Africa. Therefore, when examining the valuable collection of 
Fischer collected at Abori, Kikuyu, it was very surprising to me to find 
a species of Sambucus exactly coinciding with 5 . ebulus in habit, but 
different by unusually elongated nearly cylindrical fruits and by yellow 
anthers. Last year I received the same plant from Mr. C. F. Elliott, 
the Director of the Forest Department in the Uganda Protectorate ; he 
collected it in the hills north of Nairobi. There is no doubt of its close 
affinity to Sambucus ebulus , which is rather an isolated type of the genus ; 
at the same time it is quite certain to be indigenous in these regions 
of Africa, because no European had settled at Kikuyu at the time of 
Fischer’s travels. Further, the idea must be refuted that this African 
Sambucus is a relict form. There is no doubt that it came to the mountains 
of Equatorial Africa from its northern and Mediterranean area (extending 
from England and Gotland via Central and Southern Europe as far as 
Asia Minor and Persia and Algeria) quite in the same manner as it reached 
Madeira and the North-western Himalaya. 
In passing over to the Himalayan region, as well as in some localities 
of Asia Minor, the species has developed yellow anthers instead of the 
violet ones as shown by the ordinary forms. Our African specimens have 
the inflorescences densely clothed by rusty hairs ; they have narrow linear 
bracts and also yellowish anthers. Furthermore, the oblong-ovoid green 
fruits afford a striking character : in all the specimens, however, both 
Fischer’s and those collected by Elliott seventeen years later, these fruits 
contain only unfertilized ovules. Still, even leaving out of consideration 
these abnormally developed fruits, we may well consider the plant as 
a variety more recently evolved, var. africanus, Engl. ; foliis robustis, 
foliolis elongato-lanceolatis acuminatis ; inflorescentia dense ferrugineo- 
pilosa, bracteolis ramulos fulcrantibus lineari-lanceolatis, antheris flavis. 
English East Africa : Abori (Fischer, n. 327) ; Kikuyu (C. F. Elliott, 
n. is, 177). 
Veronica chamaedrys , L., widely distributed in Europe and occurring 
in Asia Minor also, shows only slight variations of hairiness and cutting of 
the leaf-margin throughout these countries. Also V. chamaedryoides, 
Bory et Chaub., a native of the fir-region of M. Parnassus, M. Taygetus, of 
Thasus, of Northern Laconia, Asia Minor, differs from the common form 
by denser pubescence only. Against it, Veronica micrantha, Hffgg. et 
Link, found in Portugal, near Beira, must rather be kept as a distinct species 
derived from V. chamaedrys, owing to the short peduncles, otherwise not 
seen in European forms, and to the smaller flowers. Both these characters, 
