PLANTS OF THE KARROO. 51 



have been invaluable for the brightening of our little 

 rooms, if we could possibly have brought them home. 

 But they are all much too delicate to survive the long 

 walk or ride back, and the only mountain flowers we 

 could reasonably hope to bring home in a presentable 

 condition were the large, bright yellow immortelles. 

 The scanty little streams trickling down some of the 

 cool shady kloofs between the mountains are the home 

 of a few white arums ; and their rocky beds are 

 fringed, though not very abundantly, with maiden- 

 hair fern. 



The spekboom, which is a good-sized shrub, some- 

 times attaining the height of fifteen or twenty feet, 

 grows plentifully a little way up the mountains ; and 

 in very protracted droughts, when the karroo and 

 other bush of the plains begin at last to fail, it is our 

 great resource for the ostriches, which then ascend 

 for the purpose of feeding on it ; and though they do 

 not care for it as they do for their usual kinds of food, 

 it is good and nourishing for them. Elephants are 

 very fond of the spekboom, but though a few of these 

 animals are still found near Port Elizabeth, there are 

 fortunately none in our neighbourhood to make inroads 

 on the supplies reserved for the ostriches against what 

 certainly in South Africa cannot be called " a rainy 

 day." The spekboom has a large soft stem, very thick, 

 round, succulent leaves, and its clusters of star-shaped, 

 wax-like flowers are white, sometimes slightly tinged 

 with pink. There are several plants very closely re- 

 sembling the spekboom ; one with pretty, bright yellow 



