96 Plants and their Ways in South Africa 



the most of them, they are apt to thrive and find hospitable 

 soil. 



The country needs shade, fuel, and building timber. 

 Have you ever thought how different Johannesburgh would 

 look without the Australian blue gums ? How we should miss 

 the oaks which make French Hoek and Stellenbosch so 

 delightfully shady, and how different the suburbs of Cape 

 Town would look without the European pines ! 



Fig. 99. — Mount Hawakwa, near Wellington. The Australian Eucalyptus softens 

 the treeless landscapes of the Colony. (Photograph by L. Grant.) 



The fever districts need draining. What tree could better 

 do this than the blue gums ? Their thirsty roots make enormous 

 demands on the water supply, while their vertically placed leaves 

 and slender erect habit allow the sun to penetrate to the soil. 

 The pines or "firs" and the blue gums which belong to the 

 myrtle family remind us of the prophecy in Isaiah Iv. 11-13 : 

 " So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth ; 

 it shall not return unto me void, but shall accomplish that 

 which I please. . . . Instead of the thorn shall come up the 

 fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree : 



