CHARACTER OF COUNTRY 47 



summit of which becomes crowned with the bush. When there is sufficient 

 moisture below, this develops a number of juicy fruits resembling large oranges 

 in size and shape. While the other parts of the naras bush are avoided on account 

 of their exceedingly bitter taste, the fruit, when fully ripe, loses this bitterness, 

 and its aromatic pulp is then largely consumed by jackals which act as dis- 

 tributers of its seeds. 



Of the higher mountains of Ethiopian Africa, one of the best known is 

 Kilimanjaro, whose snow-clad summit towers to an elevation of 20,000 feet. At 

 its base this mountain is clothed with low forests growing on dry soil ; but at 

 a height of 5000 feet these are succeeded by a luxuriant, damp forest extending as 

 high as 9000 feet or more. This soon ceases to be a true tropical forest, being 

 almost devoid of palms and creepers, although one clematis ascends to the tree- 

 tops, whence it sends down stems as thick as ropes. The other creepers are mainly 

 herbaceous, and wholly confined to the brush- wood ; the tallest of them being 

 Meyer's begonia, the most magnificent ornamental plant of the forest, which in 

 flowering time adorns the otherwise monotonous green with millions of yellow- 

 centred white spots, sometimes packed so close together as to form a veritable sheet 

 of snowy blossom. Slender trees with tall smooth trunks of more than 60 feet in 

 height are seldom seen, at least on the southern slope of the mountain, while on 

 the northern aspect they are represented by a single species of juniper. Some 

 isolated trees have trunks as thick as an oak, but at a man's height from the 

 ground they begin to branch, and soon become thick masses of foliage. Between 

 these rise more slender trunks, which struggle a little higher towards the light, 

 but likewise form branches low down and bend upwards to bear foliage only at 

 the top. Between these trees, which have only medium-sized leaves, grows other 

 vegetation, consisting partly of saplings of tall species, and partly of other plants, 

 from 15 to 30 feet high, which thrive in shade, and branch from the base, or after 

 the development of a stem as tall as a man and as thick as his arm. 



Lower still grows a zone of dracasnas, and two kinds of tree-fern peculiar to the 

 western slope of the mountain. A third zone, from 3 to 10 feet in height, is formed 

 by herbaceous plants, of which Lobelia volkensi is the stateliest, although by no 

 means the commonest. In appearance this lobelia resembles a small palm, and from 

 its crown, formed by long drooping leaves, rises an erect inflorescence, like a gigantic 

 ear of corn 6 feet in height. The ground is covered by a close carpet of herbaceous 

 plants, coarse grasses, ferns, and selaginellas, on which are dotted numbers of the 

 most varied flowers. The luxuriant forest, from the ground to the tree-tops, is a 

 dense mass of foliage, almost hiding the boughs and trunks. Below, above, and 

 around, nothing can, in fact, be seen but the green of the leaves ; and most of the 

 trees themselves are covered with flowerless parasitic plants, some of which hang 

 down in veils a yard or more in length, while others resemble gigantic birds' nests 

 or bolsters. Very conspicuous is a pale grey bearded-lichen (Usnea barbata), 

 which grows everywhere ; while the mosses graduate through every shade from 

 the darkest to the brightest green. Round the lower part of the trunks, especially 

 those of the thicker trees, the parasitic plants extend to meet those drooping from 

 above ; ferns, lycopodiums, and orchids growing in such profusion as completely to 

 hide the bark of the tree. 



