BOTANY 
22 1 
drop of which in the eye will bring about severe inflammation ; very thorny 
mimosas (sensitive plant); and a horrid little vine 1 growing on all cultivated 
ground, and springing up from underground tubers which are very difficult 
to extirpate. An atrocious pest, the “ Spanish needle,” has reached this 
country. It is found all round the world now in the cultivated regions of 
the Tropics. The flower is a poor irregular composite, like a lanky daisy, 
with white petals and yellow centre, and seeds that develop at one end 
a number of tiny hooks,' so that passing through a field where this weed 
grows one’s trousers bristle with innumerable brown seeds, clinging tightly 
to the cloth. A still greater 
pest is the Mucuna 2 bean, of 
which I give an illustration. It 
is a creeper that grows over 
bushes and trees. The seed pods 
are covered with tiny silky hairs 
of a reddish - brown. These, if 
touched by the skin, cause a 
most extraordinary, most extra¬ 
vagant irritation—a sort of nettle 
rash. The skin is covered with 
large white weals and the irrita¬ 
tion and heat are so bad that 
nothing but stripping and rubbing 
oneself with a cooling lotion afford 
relief. This cow itch is of very 
subtle dispersal. Clothes which 
have been washed are laid out to 
dry on bushes, and attract a few 
of the hairs off the seed pods of 
the Mucuna. To all appearance 
they might have nothing on them 
to attract attention, but they are 
no sooner worn next the skin than a sensation as of innumerable fleas attacking 
one begins to be felt until at last the irritation is unendurable. The cow itch 
is a thing which particularly affects old clearings and abandoned plantations, 
and therefore grows frequently by the roadside in Central Africa where the 
path traverses districts that have been inhabited. 
A Smilax yam is a noxious thing, as it twines round the shrubs and plants 
and throttles them ; moreover the under side of the stalks are armed with 
sharp thorns which tear the skin when one is forcing a way through the bush. 
A lily, supposed to be the species which for inadequate reasons was named by 
Linnaeus Gloriosa superba , is very poisonous to cattle or horses. But for 
this reputation (which is not absolutely proved) it is a pretty thing; the 
flowers develop, as they expand, from yellow-green to brownish-crimson and 
the terminations of the leaves are prolonged into fantastic tendrils. 
The grotesque in vegetation is well represented. Look at the Baobab tree 
without its leaves! Is it not as though nature had perpetrated a loathsome 
jest? Its enormous bulk (they have been measured 8o feet in girth) which 
1 This Vitis serpens , os it is called, clambers over and throttles plant after plant. At the same time 
when it has reached a fence and spread itself out with its pretty red-currant-like grapes it is very 
decorative. 2 Chiteze of many parts of Nyasaland. 
HAOBAK TREK 
