The Flora of the Cape Peninsula. 231 
which it has so many affinities remains as a fascinating subject for 
conjecture.' 
A suggestive parallel to this migration of plants, but one of 
more recent occurrence, is offered by the immigration into South 
Africa of the vigorous Bantu races from the North. These, divided 
into many branches, have displaced and driven Southward the 
more ancient inhabitants of South Africa, the Bushmen and the 
Hottentots, who, physically weaker and with less capacity of 
organisation, are gradually becoming extinguished by the victorious 
immigrants. The still more recent advent of the European races 
to Cape Colony has brought a new peril to the ancient flora, as is 
clearly shown by very flourishing plantations of oaks and pines on 
the lower slopes of Table Mountain and along the edge of the 
Flats near Kenilworth. The pines particularly, mainly Stone 
Pines and Cluster Pines (Finns pinea and P. pinaster), natives of 
the Mediterranean region, which possesses a climate very similar to 
that of the South West region, seem quite at home in the Cape 
Peninsula and seed freely there. As they have hardly any tree 
flora to compete against, their extension may have a very serious 
effect upon the bush vegetation, which they tend to displace. The 
introduction of Australian plants too, such as various species of 
Eucalyptus, Grevillea and Hakea, all well suited to the climatic 
conditions of Cape Colony, may cause many of the older connections 
of the Australian flora to be replaced by their newer and possibly 
more vigorous relatives. Nowhere indeed does the influence of 
man more seriously threaten to destroy the existing flora than in 
the comparatively treeless Peninsula of the Cape of Good Hope. 
It should be added that the prevalent custom of annually burning 
the vegetation on many of the mountain slopes is also helping to 
accelerate the extinction of many of the less hardy plants. 
The above somewhat condensed account of the flora of the 
Cape Peninsula will be sufficient to show what an interesting field 
of study it presents to students of the Geographical distribution of 
plants, whether they incline to an ecological or a systematic study 
of the same. In addition to the literature mentioned in the notes, 
an interesting description of the vegetation of the Peninsula, given 
1 Sir Joseph Hooker in his classical essay “On the Flora of 
Australia” .... An Introductory Essay on the Flora of 
Tasmania, 1859, considers both floras to have had a common 
origin in a vast Antarctic Continent of which the greater 
part has been submerged. See also C. B. Clarke on the 
“ Antarctic Origin of the Tribe Schoeneae.” Proc. of the 
Roy. Soc. Vol. 70, 1902, 
