“ The Karroo " in August. 
105 
places where the general soil level was slightly depressed (Fig. 4, 
PI. VII.). Perhaps the explanation in both cases is to be found in 
the fact that during rain the water would collect in these shallow 
channels or depressions, and thus more would soak in to the depth 
at which the tubers and bulbs are buried, than would occur in soil 
from which the water could run off more readily. Thus the plants 
in these relatively favoured spots might spring up under the 
influence of showers insufficient to induce the growth of those in 
somewhat drier situations. 
(iii.) In some places numbers of pretty little annuals were 
found, either in the shelter of the larger bushes, or, here and there, 
sufficiently abundant to form dense patches of green sward. The 
dark foreground in front of the Zygophyllum bushes in Fig. 1, PI. V., 
Fig. 16. Fig- 17. 
Fic 15. Hcliophila sp. Fig 16. Cotula sp. Fig. 17. Diascia Sacculata. 
h (All slightly reduced.) 
consists of one of these sward-like patches of annuals. Flowers 
and even fruits may frequently be seen on seedlings only an inch or 
two in height, and on which the cotyledons are still fresh and green 
(see Text-figs. 15—17). As Warming 1 remarks, the adaptation which 
these ephemeral species exhibit to the dry climate, lies in the short 
duration of their lives, which are thus passed wholly under 
favourable conditions. 
The slopes of the two ranges of hills which form respectively 
1 Eug. Warming, Lehrbuch dcr oekologischen Pflanzengeographie, 
1896, p. 253. 
