The Garden Magazine , June , 1923 
249 
FREESIA 
Creamy white delicately marked 
with lilac, yellow, and orange 
not be too emphatically stated that it is to them above all other agencies that 
we owe so many of our most treasured garden possessions from the Cape and 
the Orient and as these articles proceed this debt will become more apparent. 
Those who read thoughtfully will realize that out of the scramble for the wealth 
of the Indies, so long the monopoly of the Portuguese, our gardens enjoy last¬ 
ing benefits to-day. 
Up to about the middle of the 17th century Table Bay remained neutral 
ground for ships of all nations to water and re-provision, and it became an es¬ 
tablished practice for the crews of outward bound ships to leave letters be¬ 
neath stones for returning vessels to collect and carry home. But a change was 
soon to come and old-time courtesy was replaced by jealousies and hate. In 1648, 
the Haarlem, a ship belonging to the Dutch East India Company, was wrecked 
in Table Bay. The crew landed and encamped where Cape Town now stands. 
They sowed seeds, grew vegetables, procured game and fish, and trafficked peace¬ 
ably with the Hottentot natives for cattle and sheep. For five months these 
men lived in comfort and plenty until other Dutch vessels arrived and carried 
them home. On their arrival in the Netherlands two of their number urged 
upon the company the desirability of forming a settlement at the Cape. After 
due consideration the directors of the company decided to act on the suggestion, 
and two ships and a small tender were despatched under the command of Jan 
van Riebeek, in 1652, with orders to build and garrison a fort on the shores of 
Table Bay. And so it came about that 165 years after Diaz first sighted the 
Cape of Good Hope Europeans began permanently to settle in South Africa. 
The fort was built according to an approved plan large enough to hold from 
seventy to eighty persons and sufficient 
ground was appropriated for the purpose of 
gardening and pasturage. A practical peo¬ 
ple, the Dutch included one or more gar¬ 
deners in the original band of settlers who 
numbered about a hundred souls. The 
station was intended to serve the Dutch 
trade with the East by the victualling of 
their ships and was, if possible, to be made 
self-supporting and not to be a drain on the 
company’s resources. At this period the 
Dutch were nearly if not quite the 
first nation in Europe. In 1655 they 
drove the Portuguese from Ceylon 
and made themselves masters of the 
Southern Seas. As a halting place 
for their ships plying to and from 
the rich possessions in the East In¬ 
dies, the Cape became of increasing 
importance to the Dutch. In 1679, 
a settlement was established some 30 
miles inland by Simon van der Stel 
and named Stellenbosch and there 
to-day flourish magnificent avenues 
of European Oak ( Quercus robur) 
said to have been planted soon after 
the settlement was established. The 
story of the struggle for the posses¬ 
sion of the Cape, a struggle vitally 
connected with that for the admiralty 
of the seas, fascinating though it be, 
does not further concern us. 
RED-HOT POKER (Kniphofia) 
Generally red, orange, or yellow 
(K. multiflora, shown above, white) 
NEMESIA 
Great diversity of color and markings — 
white, pale yellow, rose, orange and crimson 
ITH the settling of the Dutch 
at the Cape began the introduc¬ 
tion of plants into Europe and the 
first researches into the botany of the 
region. Our earliest knowledge of 
Cape plants we owe to Justus Hcur- 
nius whose drawings and descriptions 
are reproduced by Stapel on pages 
333—336 of his edition of “Theophrastus” published in Amsterdam in 1644. Heurnius was Professor 
of Medicine at Batavia and called at the Cape on his voyage out. He must have been a botanist 
of no mean order for his figures are very good indeed. Stapelia variegata, Haemanthus coccineus, 
Cotyledon orbiculata, Kniphofia aloides and two species of Oxalis are easily recognized. Linnaeus 
based the genus Stapelia—a group of characteristic South African plants with short, succulent, 
tufted stems and curiously mottled star-shaped, foetid flowers—on the above figure, but it would 
have been more just to have named it for its discoverer, Justus Heurnius. The first collection of 
