WAYFARING NOTES IN RHODESIA. 347 



Some shrubby things are in flower. Around a Celastms, a near 

 ally, which was loaded with a small greenish-white blossom, many 

 flies, apparently of the ordinary house-fly type, were swarming. 

 A white Plumbago was found ; it is not so pretty as the ordinary 

 blue species so common in the Gape Colony. 



_ There are many species of Euphorbia, showing great range in 

 point of size. Among the succulent, fleshy ones, the large, shafted, 

 candelabrum-like one is now in fruit. The trees are very conspicuous, 

 as one of them often tops some rocky knoll, its shafts standing out 

 clearly agamst the sky. One of difterent form and intermediate size 

 has bright rose-coloured bracts ; this I found growing hard by the 

 site of Lobengula's old kraal, now Government House. At the 

 other extreme is a groundling very abundant in stony places around 

 Bulawayo. Its tough fleshy stems are four- angled and notched ; 

 the apices of each projection bear four spines, one pair |- in. in 

 length, the other pair quite short. The flower is bright green in 

 colour, and about ^ in. in diameter. It is very hardy, and when 

 wounded or broken, which often happens hereabouts, a cap of con- 

 gealed latex quickly heals up the exposed surface. 



Inhabiting the same type of ground as this Euphorbia was an 

 Asclepiad in rarity. If mimicry there be among plants, this may 

 be an instance of it. The Asclepiad is fleshy, and the habit and 

 size much that of the Euphorbia. Its angles are usually four, but 

 occasionally there are six. It is notched, and although the pro- 

 jections appear to be formidable, they are not so, but fleshy, and 

 only slightly resistant at the tips. The juice is abundant and watery. 



Two species of Loranthus were noticed in flower, and a leafless 

 Viscum.^ They mostly choose the Acacias as hosts. Possibly the 

 protection afforded by the spines of the Acacia may determine this. 

 I have seen Loranthus upon Zizyphus also ; and, among spineless 

 plants, upon Rhus and Combretum. A Protea, of shrubby habit, is 

 in full white flower. 



Fruit winged for dispersion by the wind, and at the same time 

 very attractive and conspicuous in colouring, is seen in Pterolobium 

 laceram Br. It grows in clusters by the side of streams, and is 

 cruelly hook-thorned. The terminal branchlets are devoted to 

 fruit, and seen en niasse the effect of the dull red, silky, and winged 

 legumes as they glitter and flutter before sun and wind is very 

 striking and beautiful. The winged fruit of a low-growing, dwarf 

 Combretum, which is very common the whole country over, is con- 

 spicuous from its brilliant red colour later in the year. Here and 

 there one sees some shrub carrying its fruit upon branches and 

 twigs entirely destitute of leaves, with rather weird effect. 



One of the fruits sent — that of a Gymnosporia — is interesting. 

 It loses much of its character in drying. It was growing upon a 

 loose shrub bereft of leaves. The ripe fruit is reddish yellow in 

 colour, and rather smaller than an ordinary marble. The fleshy, 

 outer part easily splits into two nearly equal parts, and, falling off', 

 discloses the dark brown seed held by a fleshy cherry-red arillus, as 

 in a bird's claw. There are four processes to the arillus, and they 

 do not quite reach the apex of the seed. The seed itself is hard as 



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