40 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



tributed from April to June, the country blossoms out lux- 

 uriantly, all of the naked bushes and trees leafing out and 

 the ground becoming covered with a wealth of flowering 

 herbs and grasses. The transformation is so complete that 

 any one passing through the region at this time cannot con- 

 ceive of the desolation which is characteristic of the dry 

 season. The two most characteristic trees are the massive 

 baobab, Adansonia digitata, and the branching doum-palm, 

 HyphcBue coriacece. Associated with these and scarcely less 

 characteristic are the two giant euphorbias. Euphorbia can- 

 delabrum and Euphorbia nyikcs, and several species of flat- 

 topped acacias. One of the characteristic shrubs of the 

 region, and one which impresses itself indelibly upon the 

 memory of the traveller, is the wait-a-bit bush, Acacia mel- 

 lifera, which is armed with short recurved thorns. The tree 

 acacias are chiefly Acacia tortilis, which form groves of large 

 trees along dry watercourses, and Acacia verugosa^ the 

 green-barked acacia, which is found near running water or 

 where the conditions are moist. A striking but irregularly 

 distributed plant in this zone is a cycad, Encephalartos hilde- 

 brandti. The great bulk of the bush vegetation is made up 

 of various species of Grezvia, Commiphora ^ Euphorbia, Aloe, 

 Sansevieria, and Acacia. 



The plant associations we meet with in this zone are 

 dense thorny bush, grassy plains with scattered tree 

 growths, and riparian flora. The nyika is characterized 

 primarily by the uniform distribution of its thorn-bush. 

 Much of the bush grows in dense thickets, which can only 

 be penetrated by cutting a way through with a knife or 

 axe. Such thickets are made up largely of small acacia 

 trees, the dagger-like leaves of several species of Sansevieria 



