40 FLORA DOMESTICA. 



ditches about the gardens near the Cape." " The porcu- 

 pine," says he, " whose usual food is the root of that beau- 

 tiful plant the Calla Ethiopica, will frequently deign to put 

 up with cabbages and other vegetables, by which means he 

 sometimes commits great depredations in the gardens *." 



In Latrobe's Visit to South Africa, this delicate yet 

 magnificent plant is mentioned as bearing the name of Pig- 

 leaf (Farhblar), probably from the circumstance of its being 

 eaten by the porcupine. One might almost wish to be a 

 Hottentot, to be surrounded by the exquisitely beautiful 

 plants the Cape so abundantly affords : Were it, indeed, 

 only to preserve the Arum flowers, which the porcupine so 

 mercilessly tears up, to devour the roots. 



" Hardly a spot exists," says Latrobe, speaking of this 

 African garden, " upon which some curious and beautiful 

 plant does not rear its head in its proper season ; and, in 

 the midst of this brown desert, we see the magnificent chan- 

 delier, or red star-flower, measuring from four or five inches 

 to a foot and a half, in the spread of its rays, growing luxu- 

 riantly among stones and sand^f*." 



This chandelier (which is the Brunsvigia multiflord)^ he 

 describes in a former part of the work : 



" We noticed here a gigantic species of plant, from its 

 singular form, very properly called the chandelier. The 

 specimen I obtained had twenty shoots proceeding from its 

 centre, in a direction nearly horizontal, each a foot long, 

 with a beautiful scarlet flower at its point. Its root is a 

 bulb ; a smaller species is common all over the waste J." 



But we are wandering in the wastes of Africa, when we 

 should be attending to our own green hedges. 



The true Arums are similar plants, which, in a wild and 



* Thunberg's Travels, vol. i. pp. 128, 283. 

 t Latrobe's South Africa, p. S74-. 



J 



