Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 81.djvu/438

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
432
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

of 60 feet (Fig. 8). I am further indebted to Mr. Galpin for an introduction to his brothers, the Galpin Bros., wealthy jewelers and competent amateur botanists, of Grahamstown, who took me in their touring car to all the cycads within easy touring-car reach of the city.

Grahamstown is an educational center, with a good college, a conservatory of music and an excellent museum. Dr. Schönland, the professor of botany in the college, gave me an account of the cycads of the vicinity, including the almost unknown Encephalartos latifrons.

Fig. 10. Encephalartos horridus in St. George's Park, Port Elizabeth.

The botanical garden at Grahamstown maintains the high standing I had learned to expect in the botanical gardens of the English colonies (Fig. 9). The director, Mr. Alexander, gave me some valuable specimens which are now flourishing in the greenhouse at the University of Chicago.

I had two more points, with outlying side trips on my schedule, East London and Port Elizabeth. On the voyage from Vancouver to New Zealand, I mentioned at table to Mr. Vance, who sat beside me, that I could find out but little about these places. Naturally, I was surprised and delighted to find that he had been mayor of East London for years and that his wife knew the cycads of the vicinity and could give me definite directions for finding them.

When I arrived at East London, Professor Rattray, of Selborn College, accompanied me into the field, and although he did. not claim to be a botanist at all, showed such an extensive and critical field