FLORA. 143 



One of the most characteristic wild plants of Abyssinian scenery is the 

 kolkwal, or branching euphorbia, similar to the giant euphorbias of the Canaries 

 and Azores. The fleshy branches of these trees interlock so tenaciously that they 

 are trained round villages to protect them from sudden attacks. Many attain a 

 height of over 40 feet. Their milky sap is a rank poison, much employed in the 

 Abyssinian pharmacopoeia, while the wood serves for the manufacture of gun- 

 powder. Another plant, the jibara [i-hynchopctalum monta num^, an annual 

 similar in appearance to the palm, clothes the mountain sides to a height of some 

 11,000 feet. It is remarkable for a gorgeous display of lilac blossom clustering 

 round a floral stem shooting from 10 to 16 feet above a topmost tuft of sword-like 

 leaves. Another characteristic plant of the uplands is a giant thistle (echinops 

 giganteus), with a stem like that of a forest-tree, and flowers the size of a man's 

 head. Still larger are the furze-bushes, which attain a height of some 26 feet. 

 On the upland terraces also flourishes the majestic kua^io {Brayera anthelmintica\ 

 whose dense foliage, interspersed with innumerable bunches of pink flowers, is 

 employed in Abyssinia, and even in Europe, as an infusion, as recommended by 

 Brayer, against the tape-worm ; the ficus dara, a species of fig, resembles the 

 Indian banian, with its aerial roots forming fresh stems and developing forests 

 capable of sheltering some himdreds of people. The wanzeh (^cordia AbyssinicaX 

 is a tufted tree usually planted round houses. The conifer family is represented 

 on the upland plateaux by the yew, and especially by the juniper, whose huge 

 trunk rises from 100 to 130 feet, and in Shoa even to 160 feet. 



Some regions of Abyssinia, especially the hilly Zebul district east of the border 

 range, are covered with vast juniper forests, which present an unique appearance, 

 for in no other part of the globe are conifers resembling those of the northern zone 

 to be found matted together with a network of tangled creepers resembling those 

 of the tropical forests. But, on the whole, Abyssinia is a disafforested country, 

 the destruction of nearly all its upland woodlands being due to the common 

 African practice of firing the prairie tracts. The landscape seen from the uplands 

 is in many places relieved only by the green oases surrounding the villages or the 

 sacred groves of the churches. Besides, but few varieties of trees are included in 

 the Abyssinian flora, merely some 235 known species, of which thirty belong to the 

 voïna-degas, and ten to the degas. But thanks to the variety of climates and vege- 

 tation on the slopes and uplands, Abyssinia may possibly one day become a vast 

 botanic garden for the cultivation of all European trees, alimentary and useful 

 plants. A poor mineral country, containing little else but iron, salt, and sulphur 

 in the volcanic regions, and some gold dust in Gojam and Damot, it is amply com- 

 pensated by the abundant resources yielded by its diversified flora, European on the 

 uplands and Indian on the lowlands. But these resources will be of little use till 

 easy routes of communication are opened between the Abyssinian plateaux and the 

 outer world. Even in the favourable season, when the rains have not swollen the 

 torrents and converted the paths into quagmires, the traveller crossing Abyssinia 

 from the Red Sea to the plains sloping to the Nile has a journey of some months 

 before him. The stages and provisions are regulated by the king, and many a 

 traveller has had to wait some weeks for the permission to continue his route. 



