PLANTS OF THE KARROO. 59 



Close to the ground, and growing from a little round 

 root apparently belonging to the bulbous tribe, you 

 sometimes — though only rarely — see a tiny mass of 

 soft, curling fibres, delicate and unsubstantial-looking 

 as a little green cloud. Even the foliage of asparagus 

 would look coarse and heavy if placed beside this really 

 ethereal little plant, which yet is durable, for I have 

 now with me a specimen which, though gathered five 

 years ago, is still quite unchanged. 



The wild tobacco is a common — indeed too common 

 — plant in the Karroo ; it has clusters of long, narrow, 

 trumpet-shaped flowers, of a light yellow, its leaves are 

 small, and it resembles the cultivated tobacco neither 

 in appearance nor in usefulness. Indeed it is one of 

 our worst enemies, being poisonous to ostriches, which 

 of course — true to their character — lose no opportunity 

 of eating it. We made deadly war upon it, and when- 

 ever during our rides about the farm we came upon a 

 clump of its blue-green bushes, we would make up a 

 little bonfire at the foot of each, and burn it down to 

 the ground. But it is tenacious of life, and its roots go 

 down deep, so its career of evil was only cut short for a 

 time. Besides which, our efibrts to keep it under were 

 of little avail while our neighbours, " letting things 

 slide," in true colonial fashion, allowed the plants to 

 run wild on their own land ; from whence the seeds 

 were always liable to be washed down to us during 

 " a big rain," when the deep sluits which everywhere 

 intersect the country become, in a few hours, raging 

 torrents, dashing along at express speed. 



