The collecting activities of Anton Rehmann ( 1840 — 1917 ) in South Africa

Anton Rehmann undertook two collecting expeditions in South Africa, in 1875-77 and 1879-80, during which he collected over 9 000 numbers. The latter journey took him as far north as the Houtbosch in Transvaal, where he was the first to make an extensive collection. A brief account is given of his life and his itineraries in South Africa with details, as far as can be ascertained, of his collecting localities.

first paper on Hieracium, a genus which was to occupy much of his attention in later years.
At the age of 35, and having done some travelling in central Europe, he embarked on the first of two lengthy expeditions in South Africa.After his first visit in 1875-77 he published a paper (Rehmann, 1879) entitled 'Geo-botaniczne stosunki poludniowej Afryki' (Phytogeographical conditions in South Africa), in which he included a map showing broad phytogeographical regions and indicating the route which he followed (Fig. 2).
his collecting localities are shown on the two maps which he published and the subject of his itineraries and collecting sites is discussed in some detail later.
In 1882 he was appointed Professor of Geography at Lemberg University and, although he paid some attention to the genus Hieracium, most of his time was devoted to geographical and ethnographical studies.His best known work was entitled 'Ziemie dawnej Polski i sasiednich krajow slowiariskich' (The land of ancient Poland and the neighbouring Slav regions), Lw6w, I (1895), II (1904).

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On his second visit during 1879-80 he concen trated on the Transvaal, travelling as far north as the Houtbosch (Woodbush).Although he was not the first person to collect in this area, he was certainly the first to make a substantial collection.William Nelson preceded him in February-March 1878 and Canon William Greenstock gathered a few spe cimens when he visited the area in August 1875.On his return to Cracow he wrote 'Das Transvaal-Gebiet des siidlichen Afrika in physikalischgeographischer Beziehung' (Rehmann, 1883), in cluding a map on which his routes are indicated.Unfortunately, our copy of the map is not clear enough for reproduction.It is based on Jeppe's map of 1879, portion of which is reproduced in Fig. 9, but lacks the minor localities.The article is disappoint ing in its lack of any botanical information.Not all ,  The Rehmann specimens were first classified into genera, species and varieties before numbering, and the numbers run from 1 to 680.There were, however, more gatherings than this because, if a species or variety was collected at more than one locality, the additional gatherings were labelled with b, c etc., so that 665, 665b and 665c represent three different gatherings of the same species.Sim's MS list accounted for about 500 of the 680 numbers and Dixon & Gepp filled in many of the gaps from K and BM material, leaving about 50 numbers unac counted for.An interesting point which emerges from this correspondence is that in January 1878, shortly after his return from the first expedition, Rehmann wrote to Kew offering moss exsiccata for sale and saying that he had given up the idea of a second visit to Africa.He considered that more would be gained by going to India, Ceylon, Malaya and Borneo.He enquired if Kew would be prepared to provide some subvention, in which case he would collect living plants as well, but apparently Kew replied in the negative.The next letter to Kew was the one from Pretoria in which enquiries about financial support were repeated in order to allow him to travel from Durban to Mauritius and Madagascar before returning to Europe.Again one must assume that the response was negative because in May 1880 he was in Cape Town, where Bolus noted in his diary that he had made a loan of £24 to Rehmann.In the list of Rehmann collecting sites in Table 1, the place names are first given as they are spelt on the labels or in literature.These are followed, where necessary, by the present-day spellings and locations mainly according to Southern African Place Names by Leistner & Morris (1976).In certain cases farm names have been found on the Trig.Survey 1: 250 000 Topocadastral series and these are indicated by (TC).The collecting numbers refer only to phanerogams and ferns and were derived from various literature sources.The numbers for mosses are not listed, because they convey no information on the sequence of localities in the route followed.
Fig. 5.-Part of a letter dated May 1889 from N. E. Brown to MacOwan.

Fig. 7 .
Fig. 7.-Temporary label on a Rehmann specimen, the type number of Zantedeschia rehmannii, in Z.
Jeppe's 1:850 000 map (London, 1879), a portion of which is reproduced in Fig. 9.Some of Rehmann's obscure Transvaal localities, such as Minaarsfarm, Neu Halle, McCabe's Vlei and Porter are shown on this map whereas others, such as Kleinsmit and Page's Hotel have still not been traced.Some localities, such as 'Axallsfarm' in the Hex River Valley, may be impossible to find at this stage, especially as the farmer's name is probably spelt wrongly.Reference may be made to Fig. 7 which shows the temporary label which he sent with his No. 80 to Engler, on which the locality is given as 'those for his phanerogams and ferns, with the moss labels usually having more information, in the form of a habitat note, than is found on the flowering plant and fern labels.There are also occasional differences in the presentation of locality information.For example 'Natal: Drakens berg Van Reenenspass' is recorded on flowering plant labels, whereas on mosses it is rendered as 'Natal: Kwatlamba ad Van Reenen's Pass'.Kwatlamba or Quatlamba was the original native name for the Drakensberg range.On the specimens collected in the Woodbush area of the Transvaal, the flowering plants bear simply the locality 'Houtbosh', whereas on the moss labels more details are given, such as 'mont.Lechlaba ad Houtbosch', 'Lechlaba supra locum Mamabolo' and 'Lechlaba, Snellskop'.Lechlaba appears to be the range also referred to as Houtboschberg, on which Schneleskop, at over 2 000 m above sea level, is the highest peak, and which separates the source of the Letaba River from the Broederstroom (Rehmann 1883, p. 376).Rehmann no doubt made his headquarters at the Berlin Mission Station which was established on this range at Mphome in 1878 (Fig. 11).In February 1894 Rudolph Schlechter also visited the Station and shortly afterwards, in 1896, it was moved to a lower and more congenial site at Krantzenstein, near the present Houtboschdorp.