ABSTRACT

The day had been exhaustingly hot, and the night also was close and oppressive. But the air was very dry; it was this extreme drought which accounted for the very different flora. It was a xerophytic flora, in appearance something like that of the Mediterranean coast. Woody plants, indeed, were not lacking; but they rather reminded me of Japanese dwarf trees. Many of them had, as you might say, a trunk, bearing a compressed crown, packed with flowers and leaves. Yet the whole plant would be only eight or ten inches high. Such was a charming Caryopteris, the stocky trunk immediately spraying up into a dome of twigs bearing innumerable tiny leaves and pale flowers. Other under-shrubs were Sophora viciifolia, the dazzling blue flowered Ceratostigma Griffithii, a yellow-flowered Wikstroemia, Mentha, Buddleia, and Rosa sericea. The majority of them were either thorny or brusquely twiggy; which must have made them unappetizing even to goats. Yet goats picked up some sort of a living from them.