ARGAN TREES
scene which at first much amused us, as we had not been accustomed to consider the goat as an arboreal quadruped.[1] Owing to the spreading habit of the branches, which in the older trees approach very near to the ground, no young seedlings are seen where the trees are near together, and but little vegetation, excepting small annuals; but in open places, and on the outer skirts of the forest, there grows in abundance a peculiar species of Thyme (T. Broussonnetii), with broadly ovate leaves and bracts that are coloured red or purple, and the characteristic strong scent of that tribe. It is interesting to the botanist as an endemic species, occupying almost exactly the same geographical area as the Argan. As we afterwards found, it is replaced in the interior of the country by an allied, but quite distinct, species. Its penetrating odour seems to be noxious to moths, as the dried twigs and leaves are much used in Mogador, and found effectual for the preservation of woollen stuffs.
Not many flowering plants were seen in the shade of the Argan trees; the only species worthy of note being a very slender annual Asphodel (A. tenuifolius), and Carum mauritanicum—a plant somewhat resembling our British pignut.
Meanwhile carpets had been spread under the shade of one of the largest Argan trees, and a copious breakfast was displayed. Fully an hour had been consumed between eating and conversation and the parting cigar, when, bidding farewell to our friends, we finally started on our road for the interior, under the guardianship of the worthy old Kaïd who commanded our escort. Separated from our interpreter and our luggage, we felt ourselves at first strangely isolated; but thanks to the cheerful readiness of our Shelluh attendants, and especially of Omback, who had been specially assigned to Hooker, this impression soon wore off. Our men had been engaged in unloading cargo from English ships in the port of Mogador, and had commenced the study of the English tongue by picking up about a dozen words from the sailors. They at once showed themselves anxious to add to their store, and the result was that all, but especially Omback, gained such a smattering of the language as served our purpose for many of the ordinary purposes of life. ‘Catch him flower’ became the ordinary way of desiring a man to gather some plant by the wayside, and many similar phrases soon passed current between us. The only term of disapproval in use with our men was ‘bloody dog,’ and this was not seldom applied to the mules whenever they gave trouble, as those creatures are wont to do.
As we rode on, the Argan forest grew thinner, the trees were gradually intermixed with other species, amongst which we noted a few specimens of Callitris quadrivalvis—the Arar of the Moors—and before long we gained, from the brow of a low hill where the forest ceased altogether, a rather wide view over a country not altogether unlike some parts of England. The hills of the province of Haha rise in successive undulations as they recede from the coast in sloping downs, relieved at intervals by clumps of trees, and elsewhere broken by masses of low shrubs. The calcareous rock, which seems never far from the surface, is thinly covered over with red earth; and patches of cultivation, chiefly barley or wheat, the former now nearly ripe, here and there indicated the presence of man somewhere within reach, but seemed to show that he plays a subordinate part in fashioning the appearance of the country. The prevailing bush or small tree is Zizyphus Lotus, whose double sets of thorns—one pointing forward and the other curved back—were destined to plague us throughout all the low country of South Marocco. The Zizyphus was often quite covered over by climbing plants, that rise ten or twelve feet from the ground. The most frequent of these, an Ephedra and an Asparagus, do not appear to require any special organs of attachment. Probably the intricate branches and complex spines of the Zizyphus render these superfluous.
Soon after this we first met bushes of one of the peculiar plants of South Marocco, then little known, and of which we were not able to learn much by personal inspection. The Acacia gummifera of Willdenow is one of a group of allied species of which the remainder inhabit Upper Egypt and Nubia, while one, at least, is widely spread throughout Eastern Africa and Arabia. The tasteless gum known as the gum-arabic of commerce is probably produced by several of these species. Like its allies, the South Marocco plant flowers late in the year, after the first autumn rains, and ripens its pods during the winter. Hence, as seen by us in spring, without flower or fruit, there was little to distinguish this from several of the other forms of this group.[2]
Among herbaceous plants that attracted our notice was Glaucium corniculatum (here always orange, and never crimson as it is in Palestine), with Campanula dichotoma, only just coming into flower, whilst two or three degrees farther north, in Palestine and Syria, it usually flowers three weeks earlier. More interesting, as being one of the few local plants common to South Marocco and the Canary Islands, was the Linaria sagittata (Antirrhinum sagittatum of Poiret), very unlike any other toadflax in the form of its leaves and its much branched twining stems that spread far and wide over the low bushes.
Although the air was cooled by a pleasant breeze, the direct rays of the sun were very powerful, and we were glad to make a short halt for luncheon near a well, where a small ruined building of rough masonry gave a narrow fringe of shadow. Resuming our route, we soon after recrossed the sluggish stream of the Oued Kseb, whose banks were fringed with Vitex Agnus castus, and with Cyperaceæ not yet in flower. We took this at the time for one of the branches of a river shown on the French map as falling into the Atlantic north of the Djebel Hadid, some twenty miles from Mogador; but we afterwards came to the conclusion that no such river is in existence.
At or near the ford is the boundary of the province of Shedma, much less extensive than that of Haha, but apparently more fertile. The soil now sensibly improved, and there were indications of more careful husbandry. At the same time the larger portion of the surface remained in a state of nature, and gratified our botanical appetites by a display of many novelties. The varied species of Genista, that are so conspicuous in North Marocco and the Spanish peninsula, were here little seen, but are replaced by several allied genera. Cytisus albidus and Anagyris fœtida are especially prominent. Withania fruticosa, a curious Solanaceous shrub, which we had already seen near Casa Blanca and during the morning ride, here became extremely common; but what most interested us was Linaria ventricosa of Cosson, a large species, with stiff erect branches three or four feet in height, first found in the adjoining province of Haha by M. Balansa, and which we afterwards saw to be widely spread through South Marocco, and one of the characteristic features of the flora.