Travel Tales 
of a PI ant Coll ector 
E. H. WILSON 
Assistant Director of the Arnold Arboretum 
Author of “Romance of Our Trees,” “Aristocrats of the Garden,” “A Naturalist in Western China,” 
and other works 
VI. WHEN THE GARDENER SEES SOUTH AFRICA 
The Delight of Finding Such Old Friends as the Gladiolus, the Calla Lily, Everlastings, the Humble Little 
Heaths and the Flaring Bloom of Many Geraniums at Home Upon the “Cape of Storms”—Discovery of 
South Africa and Early European Settlements—Climate and Physical Character of This “Land of Sunshine” 
Editors’ Note: By his unparalleled contribution to Occidental gardens of more than 2,000 new trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants brought back from a 
fourteen-year search in the Far East, Mr. Wilson has won the permanent gratitude of gardeners everywhere. Many of his introductions are already established 
in popular favor, and nearly 200 have received the authoritative stamp of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Merit. 
The exclusive privilege of publishing these accounts of “Chinese Wilson’s” recent plant explorations through Africa, Asia, and Australia, in the footsteps of the 
older plant collectors, has been accorded The Garden Magazine. 
Copyright, D. P. & Co., 1923 
^P^^T IS a singularly pleasant emotion that one feels on 
seeing growing wild for the first time plants which have 
b een familiar friends from earliest memories. This 
fflosl happens very often in travelling through South Africa. 
I recall vividly the thrill of delight felt when my eyes first lit 
on a wild clump of the blue Agapanthus umbellatus. It was in 
Natal and through the window of a railway carriage soon after 
dawn, and 1 longed to get out and fondle this old favorite. Similar 
feelings welled up when first I saw Nerines, Lachenalias, Ixias, 
Gladiolus primulinus, Kniphofia aloides, Asparagus plumosus, 
IVatsonia rosea, and on many other occasions. Indeed, my 
journey through South Africa was a succession of delightful 
thrills. 
The Kniphofias are attractive plants with their yellow, orange, 
and scarlet flowers terminating long stems. Familiarly known 
as Red-hot Pokers these plants vary in the height of their 
flower-stems from less than one foot to over six feet. Some of 
the smaller species are singularly beautiful, suggesting a yellow 
and orange-colored Grape-hyacinth. The favorite Crinum 
capense and C. Moorei are South African plants as are also the 
Clivias. A wayside weed in many places is Lobelia coronopi- 
folia with dark to light blue and white flowers and so, too, is the 
many-colored Nemesia strumosa from which a pleasing race of 
annuals has been raised within the last few years. 
Everlastings in scores of varieties abound; but none is more 
lovely than Helipterum eximium with its six-inch broad corymbs 
of ruby-red flowers, terminating three- to four-feet tall stems 
which are clothed with broad, woolly leaves. The scarlet 
Barbeton Daisy {Gerbera Jamesonii) crossed with G. aurantiaca 
and G. viridijolia has given rise to a race with florets of many 
pleasing colors. These Gerberas are now beginning to share 
a place in gardens with their relatives and fellow-countrymen 
Gazania and Arctotis. 
Another modern group of greenhouse flowers we owe to South 
Africa is Streptocarpus, the Cape Primrose. The race of to-day 
—and wonderful it is—is the result of crossing several species 
and recrossing, selecting, and inter-breeding with their progeny. 
The work was commenced at Kew about 1886 by W. Watson 
who pollinated flowers of Streptocarpus Rexii from the one- 
leafed, red-flowered A. Dunnii. The resultant hybrid was 
named S. kewensis. He next pollinated flowers of S. parviflora 
from those of S. Dunnii and produced a second hybrid which 
was named A. IVatsonii. Thus was the foundation laid and to 
the late Curator of Kew Gardens belongs the credit. 
Watsonia is another genus of herbs beautiful in themselves 
and, to the hybridist, pregnant with possibilities. In Australia 
my friend, Mr. J. Cronin, Director of the Melbourne Botanic 
Garden, has by intercrossing raised a wonderful race of Wat- 
sonias with stems from five to six feet tall bearing flowers of 
every hue. Tritonias are also from South Africa and our gar¬ 
dens to-day enjoy a beautiful race of these plants as the result 
of the hybridists’ skill and patience in breeding from Tritonia 
aurea, T. Pottsii, T. crocata and their progeny. 
The familiar Calla or Arum Lily ( Zantedescbia aethiopica ) is 
common in swampy places and alongside rivers from the Cape 
Province northward to central Africa and so, too, is a pretty 
blue-flowered Water-lily ( Nympbaea stellata), likewise the well- 
known Cyperus utilis and the Cape Pond Weed ( Aponogeton 
distachyum). Under a variety of conditions the Lion’s Tail 
(Leonotis Leonurus. ) flourishes; but more particular are the 
Bird-of-Paradise or Parrot-flowers ( Strelitfia regina, S. augusta, 
and A. parvifolia), relatives of the Banana, but with crest-like, 
brilliant inflorescences rich in honey and much visited by birds. 
A MONG the riches of the Cape flora it is difficult to judi¬ 
ciously pick and choose, but I think this miscellany may be 
brought to an end by mention of a group, more familiar the 
world over perhaps than any individual plant yet referred to, 
namely, the common Geranium and Pelargonium of gardens. 
The parents of the bedding Geranium, the Ivy-leaf Geranium 
and the Show Pelargonium are Cape plants; and so, too, are the 
Scented-leaf Geraniums. It is permissible to admire the latter 
to-day but their gay-flowered relatives are somewhat taboo. 
Because we have grossly abused these cheery, good-natured 
plants, made them gross and coarse, over-planted them, and set 
them in ill-suited places fashion decrees that for the nonce they 
be frowned upon. But fashion is a fickle tyrant and it is only a 
matter of time when she will again smile on old friends. Rightly 
used the Geranium in its varied forms is one of the most service¬ 
able plants known to gardens and fie on those who blame a plant 
for their own misuse of its beauty and value. 
The wild parents of these races of useful plants were among 
the early introductions from the Cape into Holland, whence 
they soon were carried to England. The first to arrive appears 
to have been Pelargonium cucullatum in 1690. Paul Herman 
collected specimens at the Cape in 1672 and figures it on page 
275 of his “ Horti Academici Lugduno-Bativi Catalogus,” 
issued in 1687, as “Geranium africanum arborescens foliis 
cucullatis, etc.” From this and P. angulosum the race of Regal 
or Show Pelargoniums is considered to have sprung. Of this 
247 
