The Protea Species of the Summer Rainfall Area of South Africa.*

The genus Protea, R. Br. (nom. cons.), is distributed throughout Africa south of the Sahara with two main centres of distribution, the Cape fynbos and the Central African Brachystegia belt which stretches from Angola through the Rhodesias into Tanganyika. The former contains about 70 species, and the latter, as at present known, about 50. Four species only which are not represented within the tropical Brachystegia belt occur to the north of it, bringing the total for tropicals up to 54. For the summerrainfall area of South Africa, which we may designate the sub-tropical belt linking the tropical and Cape centres of distribution, this paper will deal with 12 endemic species, bringing the total for the genus to 136. These are, therefore, equally divided between the Cape and the rest of Africa.