Abstract
THE name of Dr. Harry Bolus is closely associated A with the story of South African botany for the last forty years. In April, 1874, a letter to Sir Joseph Hooker was read at a meeting of the Linnean Society, of which Bolus had recently been elected a fellow (December 18, 1873), in which he criticised Grisebach's limitation of the Cape and Kalahari floral provinces (see Journ. Linn. Soc., xiv.). This was the beginning of a series of publications embodying the results of his observations on the flora of a peculiarly rich and attractive botanical area. In 1886 Bolus wrote for the official handbook of the Cape of Good Hope a valuable “Sketch of the Flora of South Africa,” in which he proposed a series of natural botanical divisions, forming, roughly, successive zones from the coast northwards. From 1881 to 1889 he communicated to the Linnean Society a number of contributions to South African botany, containing critical notes on various genera and species, as well as descriptions of many novelties; but it was to the heaths and orchids that he was especially devoted. The results of his study of the large and intricate genus Erica are found in his monograph (in part of which he had the help of the late Prof. Guthrie) in the “Flora Capensis” (vol. iv., sect, i, issued in 1905), where the 469 species are described in detail, and arranged under forty-one sections.
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R., A. Dr. Harry Bolus . Nature 86, 490 (1911). https://doi.org/10.1038/086490a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/086490a0