256 SOUTH AFRICAN MARVELS. 



Arduinia spinosa, the Lyciurn Afrum, the Euclsea ondulata, whose 

 berries are eaten by the Hottentots ; several species of Rhus,* among 

 others the Rhus lucidum ; and, finally, a great number of the 

 strange fantastic Proteacese, with their hard dry evergreen leaves and 

 curiously beautiful flowers. At the foot of the mountains, in the 

 countries bordering on Caffraria, different Cycadaceas are found, espe- 

 cially the Zamia and Encephalartus, an elegant plant with a short 

 spherical trunk, surmounted by a crown of long rigid palmated leaves. 

 The natives prepare with their pith a species of cake which they eat 

 instead of bread. Ferns are not numerous at the Cape ; the most 

 remarkable, undoubtedly, is the Todea Africana. The hills and 

 meadows of this part of South Africa do not always exhibit so 

 marked an aridity; rivers and streams refresh the soil, and there, 

 where the current is not too swift nor the depth too great, grows the 

 beautiful Calla of Ethiopia, a species of Aroidea, whose snow-white 

 fragrant flowers resemble a large horn in shape ; the Aponoyeton 

 distachyum, another aquatic plant, with white flowers and floating 

 leaves, is not less common in similar positions ; then on the banks, 

 in fresh and shady nooks of greenery, thrives the Strelitzia regince, a 

 gorgeous-flowered genus of Musacece, named after Charlotte of Meck- 

 lenburg-Strelitz, queen of George III. The foliage of this magnifi- 

 cent plant consists of long-stalked leaves sheathing at the base, 

 arising from a contracted stem, the flower stalk encircled below by 

 the sheath of the leaf-stalk ; while from its upper portion springs a 

 large bract or spathe placed obliquely, within which lie the flowers, 

 resplendent in orange and purple. 



In the Desert of Kahalari exists an abundant and varied vegeta- 

 tion. According to Dr. Livingstone, it is an immense plain which 

 nourishes a prodigious quantity of herbaceous plants, generally of 

 very small elevation, and besprinkled at intervals with thickets of 

 bushy shrubs. The herbs which are enabled to withstand the 

 prolonged droughts of these arid localities are species with tuberous 

 roots, creeping or spindle-like, and deeply buried in the ground. 



* Order, Anacardiacex, 



