CHAP. XV FIRST IMPRESSIONS 281 



plateau are less important in this respect than that of the 

 meadows beside the glaciers and around the snow-fields of the 

 higher peaks ; nevertheless they yield interesting evidence as 

 to the factors that govern distribution, and striking examples of 

 the adaptation of plants to conditions of rainfall, soil, and 

 climate. 



Taken as a whole, the flora of British East Africa at first 

 sight seems poor and commonplace — very different from the 

 usual conception of tropical vegetation. There is no vast 

 expanse of dense forest, in which the trees are buried below in 

 a matted jungle of undergrowth, and laced together above 

 by twining creepers and lianas, while the trunks are adorned 

 by epiphytic orchids, bearing flowers of exquisite form or 

 powerful odour. 



Instead of this wild luxuriance, the vegetation is sparse, 

 the flowers are small and insignificant, wild edible fruits are 

 rare, and the flora appears disappointing, dull, and monotonous. 

 Of course there are exceptions. Belts of dense forest occur on 

 the alluvial plains bordering the rivers, and in the zones of per- 

 ennial rain on the mountains of the interior, while the swamps 

 on the coast are covered with acres of blue-flowered lotus-water- 

 lily, or Yungi-yungi, and tiny yellow bladderwort {Utricularid). 

 Neither is the country wholly lacking in plants of quaint form 

 or interesting habit, for there are the trailing rubber vines 

 {Landolplna) and rope-like lianas; the screw-pines {Pandatius) 

 with huge spiral rosettes of leaves, and trunks balanced on 

 the apex of a cone of aerial roots ; baobabs {Adansonia 

 digitata, Linn.) with massive soft trunks and irregular knobbed 

 branches ; silk -cotton trees {Bojnbax sp.) with graceful stems 

 and rectangular branches, and forests of branching dum palms 

 {Hyp/ueiie thebaica. Mart.) These, however, are exceptions, 

 and, as a rule, the vegetation is commonplace in aspect and 

 ordinary in structure. 



Most of the plants above mentioned are confined to the 

 coast zone, and there they are associated with others which, 

 as on Mombasa island, form a vegetation of exquisite beauty 

 and more typical of the tropics. But a few miles inland 

 there is a sudden change in the flora. The coast plants, the 

 palms, mangoes, and fruit orchards disappear ; they are replaced 

 by huge candelabra -shaped euphorbias with thick succulent 



