The Garden Magazine, July, 1923 
327 
ing and remained in South Africa the 
rest of his life. Bowie seems to have 
been an odd character, cherished his 
wrongs, real and imaginary, became em¬ 
bittered and outcast and died in poverty 
in 1869. He introduced many plants in¬ 
cluding the useful Streptocarpus Rexii, 
that striking Cycad, Encephalartos hor- 
ridus, and the fine Clivia nobilis. This 
last came from the neighborhood of Gra- 
hamstown but for “prudential business 
reasons” Bowie reported it from the 
Orange River. In 1773, Sir James Cock- 
burn introduced the remarkableGar^wz'a 
Thunbergii into England. Thomas 
Baines, who came to the Cape in 1842 
and died in Durban in 1875, filled the 
post of artist in the Second Kaffir War, 
and discovered the extraordinary Welwit- 
schia Bainesii; also the gigantic Aloe 
Bainesii with branching stems and 
swollen trunk-base. 
Scores of othertravellers and collectors 
have added their quota to the sum of our 
knowledge of Cape plants, but there is no 
space further to pursue this subject. As in Australia so, too, in 
South Africa and elsewhere it is to many men of high and low 
degree—some commemorated, but a greater number neglected 
and unknown—that we owe the many plants that so notably 
embellish our gardens. 
Of “Honey-pots” and the Silver Tree 
S A matter of fact, apart from the very cold regions of the globe, 
every country can boast of a general miscellany of trees, shrubs, 
and herbs noteworthy for the beauty of their flowers. The Cape, we 
have already shown, is no exception and in addition possesses four well- 
marked types, each of sufficient merit to make the country remarkable. 
These four types—succulent plants, bulbous plants, Proteas, and Heaths 
—dominate the floral features of the Cape of Good Hope. Heaths, 
bulbous and succulent plants are found in other parts of the earth 
though in less variety, but the glorious Proteas are peculiarly South 
African. Brilliant inflorescences are characteristic of the Cape flora 
and in this respect the only region in the world with which fair com¬ 
parisons can be made is West Australia. In both lands Proteaceae, a 
family of endless variety of forms, is a striking floristic feature. What 
the genus Banksia is to West Australia, Protea is to South Africa; yet 
this genus is even less known in American gardens than is Banksia. 
Proteas are common in the immediate vicinity of Cape Town as well as 
throughout the whole of the coastal plateau; a few species are found 
in the more elevated and drier legions to the north. Some like Prolea 
grandiflora are trees of moderate size, others like P. amplexicaulis and 
P. cordata almost hug the ground, but the vast majority are bushes from 
6 to 10 feet tall with erect stems and huge, terminal, handsome heads 
of flowers. Such heads consist of very many elongated, relatively 
simple flowers having no petals but with colored calyx and bracts en¬ 
closed and nestling within seried rows of tall colored scaly, more or less 
erect, floral bracts—nests of colored, fluffy down guarded by projecting 
stamens and pistils suggesting the quills of a fledgling Bird of Paradise. 
The first species to be figured in European literature was Protea nerii- 
folia by Clusius in his “ Exoticarum,” (p. 38, fig. 15) published in 1605, 
as “Cardui generis elegantissimi etc.” The specimen is said to have 
come from Madagascar, but much more probably it came from the 
shores of Algoa Bay or those of Table Bay. This species is wide-spread 
and its large flower-heads with velvety black apical tufts of hairs 
bearding the upright involucral scales are strikingly handsome. Nowa¬ 
days about 100 species are known and all are worth a place in the best 
Californian gardens, yet Bailey’s Cyclopedia mentions three only 
(P. cynaroides, P. mellifera, and P. nana) as being in cultivation in this 
country. Overflowing with honey are the pink and white heads of 
P. mellifera; [Known to the Boers as “honey-pots.” The honey is col¬ 
lected and made into a kind of sugar, their blooming being a great oc¬ 
casion for picnics. Bailey’s“Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture,’’page 
2812] and striking are those of P. speciosa, with tufts of black hairs on the 
tips of the inner involucral bracts; but none are finer than the glossy- 
leafed P. cynaroides common and wide-spread from Cape Town to 
Grahamstown in the east. The involucral 
bracts of this species vary from nearly white 
to silvery rose; the heads are from 10 to 12 
inches across and the plants anything from 1 
foot to 10 feet tall. It favors rocky places 
and to come suddenly upon this plant in blos¬ 
som, to look down into its wondrous beauty 
as it nestles amid rocks, is a delight never 
to be forgotten. It has been my good fortune 
to see either under cultivation or on their na¬ 
tive heaths nearly all the known flowers of 
exceptional merit. I have a generous mead 
of praise for each and every one; but, in my 
judgment, the handsomest inflorescence in 
the world is that of Protea cynaroides seen 
on its native heath. 
Prominent among the renowned trees of 
the world is the Silver Tree (Leucadendron 
argenteum), the Witte-boom of the Dutch, 
which is common on the slopes of the Lion’s 
Head, round Kirstenbosch, and elsewhere on 
granites in the immediate vicinity; but very 
rare on Table Mountain itself, and quite un¬ 
known as a wild tree anywhere else in the 
world. It is an extraordinary tree which at 
once arrests attention by its strange appear¬ 
ance. I would not call it beautiful, though it 
fascinates. About 75 feet is its maximum height, with crown of propor¬ 
tionate size; the bark smooth and nearly white becoming roughened and 
dark in old age; the sessile lance-shaped six-inch long leaves are densely 
crowded, clothed with long soft hairs and are silvery gray like the bark. 
The trees are either male or female and the flowers are not specially 
attractive, but the fruit is wonderfully interesting. It may be likened 
to a short, broad, egg-shaped Spruce-cone, but it is erect. It has simi¬ 
larly stiff scales, at the base of each of which nestles a hard, somewhat 
compressed nut which is, tipped by the style with its thickened club- 
shaped stigma. These scales are the altered bracts and the nut the fruit 
proper. Each nut is enclosed within a thin membraneous sheath, the 
persistent calyx, which has four, narrow, densely hairy lobes. When 
this composite fruit is ripe and the weather dry the “cone-scales” open 
and in doing so exert pressure on the base of the nut forcing it upward 
and outward; the calyx lobes with their tufts of hairs spread quadri- 
laterally and a perfect parachute is formed. As the wind makes itself 
felt beneath this parachute the nuts are lifted out, the membraneous 
sheath splits, and the nut, now suspended by aid of the persistent style 
and its thickened stigma, is wafted gently away. The mechanism is 
marvellous, yet the weight of the seed is such that save in strong winds 
the lateral distance it is carried is slight, deviating verv little indeed 
from the perpendicular. 
Specimens of the Silver Tree were first collected in 1672 by Paul 
Herman who called it the Atlas Tree. A leafy branch and a naked 
nut are figured by Plukenet in his “Opera” (I. t. 200 (1691)) under the 
name of ‘‘Leucadendros Africana.” A larger figure showing a branch, 
fruit-cone, nut and parachute is given by Jan Commelin in his “ Horti 
Medici” (pt. 2, 31, t. 26 (1701)) as “Argyrodendros africana, the 
Witte Boom.” Linnaeus called it a Protea and Robert Brown in 
1810 gave it the name it has since been known by. The Silver Tree 
is the despair of the gardener. It is often raised from seed and fre¬ 
quently grows quite freely for a few or several years; and then sud¬ 
denly dies! It may be added for the consolation of the cultivator 
that even in a wild state at the Cape this tree behaves in the same 
capricious manner. 
More than seventy other species of Leucadendron are recognized, 
nearly all of them shrubs. One of the most common throughout the 
coast region is L. adscendens, often a dominant feature of the flats and 
conspicuous by the yellow color of its topmost leaves which are easily 
mistaken for flowers at a short distance. In the related genus, Mimetes, 
the flower-heads are small and axillary, the flowers appear from among 
the upper leaves, the whole forming a handsome plume. Only about 10 
species are known and one of the finest is M. birta, with red and yellow 
flowers, which grows at Cape Point in situation^ exposed to the full 
storm blasts of the southern ocean. Fourteen genera of Proteaceae 
with some 350 species grow in South Africa and nearly all are meritori¬ 
ous plants, but I have only space to mention one more, namely Leu- 
cospermum nutans. This, as I saw it, is a sparingly branched shrub 
from 3 to 5 feet tall with relatively short, broad leaves and terminal 
heads of brilliant red and orange colored flowers suggesting a glorified 
shrubby Sweet Sultan with nodding flowers. 
FRANCIS MASSON (1741-1805) 
“Pioneer and forerunner of the many plant col¬ 
lectors sent out from the famous Kew Gardens” 
