HALFA GRASS. 425 



for paper making, is one of these. It grows in tufts or 

 clumps, in arid and rocky places, and mostly in moun- 

 tainous localities where little else in the way of 

 vegetation will grow. Its value in the raw state is 

 considerable, and is stated to be from 4 to 6 a 

 ton. 



Immediately on the occurrence of rain, most of the 

 desert grasses spring up with wonderful rapidity; 

 quickly producing luxuriant growths of herbage, in all 

 favourable situations, which are much liked by camels 

 and other animals. But as they become desiccated by 

 the severity of the prolonged drought, many of them 

 are apt to become hard and wiry, and the ends of the 

 dried stalks then become converted into an armoury of 

 sharp spikes and barbs; the seeds of a good many 

 varieties are also prickly, and stick to clothes, etc., like 

 burrs; so that travelling at times becomes exceedingly 

 disagreeable. The well-known " Spinifex " or " Por- 

 cupine " grass of Australia * may be cited as a good, 

 though possibly extreme instance, of this kind of grasses ; 

 it is found growing in large clumps or tussocks, 

 sometimes three or four feet high, which often cover 

 the arid plains for hundreds of miles together. " f The 

 wounds inflicted by the spikes of this grass are so 

 serious, that horses " are often lamed, and even killed 

 by it," it is said to be utterly useless as forage, and 

 where these tussocks appear "water is hardly ever to 

 be found. " Another grass of a somewhat similar 

 nature grows extensively in some of the dry karroos 



* Triodia Irritans. 



j- Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Australia, 

 Edited by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 21. 



Ibid., p. 21, see also Journal of Colonel Warburton, the Australian 

 Explorer, pp. 186 7. 



