Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/51

 continent; but by far the larger portion of this region is covered by an impenetrable bush-forest, consisting partly of shrubby undergrowth, and partly of dwarf trees. Many of these appear to be of immense age, but many others seem to have been attacked by insects, and have so become liable to premature decay.

Every now and then our road led past slopes, where the stems of the trees were covered all over with lichen, which gave them a most peculiar aspect, and it was a pleasant reminiscence of the woods of the north to see a beard-lichen (Usnea) with its thick grey-green tufts a foot long decorating the forked boughs as with a drapery of hoar-frost. In other places, the eye rested on declivities covered for miles with dwarf bushes, of which the most striking were the various species of red-flowering aloes, and the different euphorbias, some large as trees, some low, like shrubs, and others mere weeds, but altogether affording a spectacle at which the heart of a botanist could not but rejoice.

Numerous varieties, too, of solanum (nightshade) laden with yellow, white, blue, or violet blossoms, climb in and around the trees, and in some parts unite the stems with wreaths that intertwine so as to form almost an impenetrable thicket, where the grasses, the bindweeds, the heaths, and the ranunculuses in the very multiplicity of their form and colour fill the beholder with surprise and admiration. Like a kaleidoscope, the vegetation changes with every variation of scenery; and each bare or grassy