CLIMATE, GEOLOGY, BOTANY, $c. 
335 
and Cape Colony. There are besides, in the collections 
I have brought back, two new genera offering no near 
allies; types of other genera only known hitherto in 
Arabia or India; and some new species of East 
African genera that have apparently modified them¬ 
selves for life at high altitudes. It is interesting to 
note that while some of the species whose generic 
home is in the hot tropical plains have strayed up the 
great mountain and got used to the cold, so others, 
which come from temperate regions, have ventured 
down the mountain and got used to the heat. A 
curious instance of this is Artemisia afra , which I 
have found at 14,000 feet near the snow, and at 3000 
feet, in close proximity to the hot plains. If plants 
of temperate or cold climates could occasionally stray 
so far as this from the regions and the temperature 
they most affect, it would materially aid in their dis¬ 
tribution, for the seeds of the Artemisia (this plant 
will be familiar to my non-scientific readers as 
“southernwood,” or u old man”) might easily be 
borne from the jungle at the base of Kilima-njaro to 
the precincts of Mount Meru, some thirty miles dis¬ 
tant, and find on the chilly slopes of that mountain 
another congenial home and starting-place for a further 
colonization of unknown peaks beyond. Thus, taking 
into consideration the fact that more or less high 
ground connects the mountains of the Kilima-njaro 
district with the Cape Colony in the south and the 
Cameroons in the west, it is possible to account for 
the presence of many hardy genera belonging to tem¬ 
perate zones on the heights of Tropical Africa without 
always invoking special climatic changes and revolu¬ 
tions in the past. 
To the ordinary mind even of an unreflecting tra- 
