John Hutchinson proposed a radical revision of the angiosperm classification systems devised by Joseph Dalton Hooker and that of Adolf Engler and Karl Anton Eugen Prantl which had become widely accepted during the 20th century.

Here Gillett's place was taken by Robert Allen Dyer and the route veered inland to Grahamstown and Katberg, then back to the coast, visiting Butterworth, Port St Johns, Kokstad, Pietermaritzburg and Durban.

From here Hutchinson travelled on his own and in Pretoria joined up with General Smuts, who was a keen and knowledgeable botanist, to the far northern Transvaal to explore Lake Fundudzi, sacred to the Venda people.

Having met Hutchinson on his previous visit to South Africa, General Smuts invited him to join a party consisting of Margaret Clark Gillett with two of her sons, Jan and Anthony, on a trip to Lake Tanganyika.

They collected all the way to Lake Tanganyika and then retraced their route to Broken Hill, where Hutchinson boarded a goods train to Elizabethville (Lubumbashi).