SOUTHERN AFRICA. 141 
great forests of Van Staaden's river, was eminently distin- 
guished for its beauty and elegance. An euphorbia, throw- 
ing out a number of naked arms from a straight trunk thirty 
or forty feet high, held also a distinguished place among the 
shrubbery. But one of the largest and most shewy trees, at 
this time in the height of its bloom, was the KafFer's bean- 
tree, the erythrina corallodendriim, so called from the color and 
resemblance of its large clusters of papilionaceous flowers to 
branches of red coral. Numbers of beautiful birds, such as 
small paroquets, touracos, woodpeckers, and many others, 
were fluttering about these trees for the sake of the sweet 
juices that are generated in the flowers. The coral-tree, like 
many other dazzling beauties, has its imperfection : the leaves 
are deciduous, and the blossoms, like those of the almond, 
decay before the young leaves have burst their buds. This is 
not the case with the Hottentot's bean : the clusters of scarlet 
flowers intermingled with the small and elegant dark-green 
foliage, gave it a remarkable pre-eminence among the tall 
trees of the kloofs, and the thick shrubbery on the sides of 
the swells. It is the African lignum vitte, the guajaciun 
Afrum of Linnaeus, and the schotia speciosa of the Hortiis 
Kewensis. The wood, however, is not sufficiently hard to 
be converted to the same purposes as lignum vitae, nor is 
the tree large enough to make it of any particular use. The 
seeds of this leguminous plant are eaten by the Hottentots, 
and are sometimes also used by the colonists. Two genera 
of the palm tribe were frequently met with ; one, the zamia 
ci/cadis, or Kaffer's bread-tree, growing on the plains ; and 
the other, also a species of the same genus, skirting the 
springs and rivulets : the fruit of the latter was called wild 
