The variety of trees and plants growing in this country is very great, though it is somewhat difficult to give any clear idea of them, for most have no names except native ones, which are pretty, but convey nothing to the reader, and botanical ones, which are ugly, and in most cases convey not much more. Such a general term as ‘palms,’ for instance, is of little use; still, every one knows, to a certain extent, what the different kinds of palms are like. We have several, all growing on the lower levels; none are to be found so high as Blantyre, unless cultivated, except the wild date, which grows beside the streams. The tall, graceful fan-palms (_Borassus_ and _Hyphæne_) are very abundant in the plains. I remember quite a forest of them near Maparera, on the Shiré. When you descend from the hills either towards the river or towards Lake Chilwa, baobabs and fan-palms make their appearance and remind you that you are leaving the temperate heights behind and entering the hotter zone of the low country. Ferns are numerous—from the tree-fern, growing in the gorges of Mlanje, to the smallest and most delicate species of maiden-hair, to be found in the damp crevices of rocks, and beside the streams. The asparagus and parsley ferns, and a beautiful kind of large hart’s-tongue, with the tip of the frond cleft in two, are among the more noticeable forms. Though, as we have seen, there are no forests on a large scale, a fair number of fine timber-trees are to be found. There is the _mbawa_, a kind of mahogany, and the _mpingo_, or ebony, both of large size and handsome growth, and the Mlanje cedar (really a _Widdringtonia_), the only indigenous conifer, and growing nowhere but on that mountain. Its wood is pale red, smooth, and deliciously scented. Most of the native wood which can be used at all is hard and heavy, and somewhat difficult to work; but the result, especially in the case of the cedar, is worth the trouble. Another useful timber-tree, whose wood is never attacked by the destructive borer-beetle, is the _msuku_ (_Napaca Kirkii_), only found at a height of over two thousand feet, and very common on the hills about Blantyre. It bears the favourite wild fruit of the natives, consisting of a skin and a quantity of large seeds, with a little sweet pulp, and a moderate allowance of juice; what there is of it is so good that it would be well worth cultivation. Other wild fruits are not so attractive to the European palate. There is one about the size of an orange, with a hard shell, and seeds embedded in a juicy pulp, slightly bitter, slightly acid, and slightly sweet, and at the same time not unpleasant in flavour. I believe the tree is a kind of _Strychnos_, consequently one would expect the fruit to be poisonous, yet native children eat any quantity, and seem none the worse.