THE HOTTENTOT'S FIG. 



2-53 



herbaceous bulbous plants display their beauties, which are now 

 familiar to our English gardens under the names of Gladiolus, Oxalis, 

 Ixia, and Tulbaya. To those magnificent ornaments of the floral 

 world we must add some less known plants, remarkable iii other 

 respects ; such as the Mollugo cei'viana, which, with a few Ficoidese, 

 form the almost exclusi\ 7 e nourishment of the herbivorous animals 



VEGETABLE LIFE OF CAPE COLONY. 



i. 2. Aloe soccotrii 



5. Aloe plicatilis. 



3. Aloe ciliaris. 4. Aloe arboresceus. 



C. Gladiolus blandus. 



belonging to these countries. The Graminese are rare in the plains of 

 Cape Colony, but, on the other hand, they contain a number of oleagi- 

 nous plants included in divers families. Here, for instance, are those 

 singular Compositor, whose stems so closely resemble waxen tapers ; 

 several Ficoidese, of which some species as, notably, the Mesem- 

 bryanthemum edule, or Hottentot's Fig, distributed over the interior 

 of Southern Africa, and the Mesembryanthemum tuberosum are 



