i ’ ! « 
Vegetation in Natal and the Transvaal. 5 
to Pretoria we come not only to a lower altitude, but also into the 
drainage area of the Limpopo, and beyond the Magaliesberg Range 
we enter the Low-veld or “Bush veld” which stretches Northward 
and Westward. This is practically a savannah, i.e. a grass-covered 
country with scattered trees and often of park-like aspect. Where 
sufficiently watered or irrigated it is capable of yielding an 
abundant harvest of maize, tobacco, oranges, lemons, and even 
bananas. 
Just outside Pretoria, on the Magaliesberg, to which Mr. Burtt- 
Davy had been good enough to arrange an excursion, we had an 
opportunity of seeing some of the Transvaal tree vegetation, 
including the Kaffirboom (Erythrina caffra), its leafless branches 
terminated by magnificent bunches of scarlet flowers which are 
pollinated by birds. The long papilionaceous flowers are directed 
stiffly back from the ends of the twig, like points of an arrowhead, 
and the bird, alighting on the branch somewhat below the flower, 
thrusts its beak between the brilliant petals, which are nearly two 
inches in length. In addition the Northern slope of the 
Magaliesberg Range was clad with numerous trees, including several 
species of Combretum with large winged fruits, and Dombeyas 
with clusters of white flowers. 
But the tree of greatest interest to botanists, as well as other 
visitors, was the “ Wonderboom ” at the foot of the hill, a specimen 
of Ficus cordata, forming a dense and dark green grove in great 
contrast to the leafless trees on the slopes (PI. 1, fig. 1). The original 
tree has in part died away, but not before its large branches had 
fallen over and become rooted fifteen or more feet from the parent 
stem, producing a number of new trees around the centre (PI. 1, fig. 2). 
And the trees of this second ring have produced yet a third and 
more numerous series in a similar way on the outside, so that the 
original tree is now replaced by a grove of vegetative decendants, 
which from the outside appear as a single wide-spreading tree. 
Many of the smaller plants found on this memorable excursion 
were of great interest to us, such as the unisexual and dioecious 
Labiate Moschosma, a rubber vine Landolphia capensis, and 
numerous hard leaved Aloes which, with the little Selaginella 
rnpestris, covered the drier rock faces. But the most remarkable 
of all these xerophytic plants was the shrubby Myrothamnus 
flabellifolia, a plant largely distributed over the mountains in 
Central Africa, where it ascends to a great height and is often the 
last shrub, often creeping like Salix repens. As we saw it in the dry 
