Magazine without remark to the contrary. But Mr. 
Burchell having discovered it in abundance near Graaf- 
rennet bearing fruit, which he describes as a membranous 
capsule, anew genus has been constituted, and named in 
allusion to the resemblance the caudex bears to a tortoise. 
To this genus, which is more nearly related to Dioscorea 
than to Tamus, a second species has been added by Mr. 
Burchell, with the following name and character :-— 
Testudinaria montana; foliis cordatis semicollapsis latioribus, quam 
longis obsoleté nervosis subtis glaucis. 
A hardy greenhouse plant, pushing out its annual twi- 
ning stems to the length of 8 or 10 feet, and flowering from 
July to November. The old stems, which are occasionally 
brought from the Cape, and in the grotesque figure~of 
which the principal interest about the plant consists, are 
easily cultivated in any common greenhouse; but no 
means of artificially propagating it has yet been dis- 
covered. Mr. Burchell speaks of it in the following 
manner :— 
«« These mountains are the native soil of an extraor- 
dinary plant called Hottentot’s Brood (Hottentot’s Bread), 
Its bulb stands entirely above ground, and grows to an 
enormous size, frequently 3 feet in height and diameter, 
It is closely studded with angular ligneous protuberances, 
which give it some resemblance to the shell of a tortoise. 
The inside is a fleshy substance, which may be compared 
to a turnip, both in consistence and colour. From the top 
of this bulb arise several annual stems, the branches of 
which have a disposition to twine round any shrub within 
reach. The Hottentots informed me, that in former times 
they ate this inner substance, which is considered not 
unwholesome when cut in pieces and baked in the embers. 
It will easily be believed, that this food may not be very 
unlike the yam of the East Indies, since the plant belongs, 
if not to the same, at least to a very closely allied genus, 
as the membranaceous capsules, with which it was at this 
time covered, clearly proved.” rt 
