Here We Have An Example Of A Plant,
Not Generally Tuber-Bearing, Becoming So Under Circumstances Where
That Appendage Is
Necessary to act as a reservoir for preserving its life;
and the same thing occurs in Angola to a species
Of grape-bearing vine,
which is so furnished for the same purpose. The plant to which
I at present refer is one of the cucurbitaceae, which bears a small,
scarlet-colored, eatable cucumber. Another plant, named Leroshua,
is a blessing to the inhabitants of the Desert. We see a small plant
with linear leaves, and a stalk not thicker than a crow's quill;
on digging down a foot or eighteen inches beneath, we come to a tuber,
often as large as the head of a young child; when the rind is removed,
we find it to be a mass of cellular tissue, filled with fluid
much like that in a young turnip. Owing to the depth beneath the soil
at which it is found, it is generally deliciously cool and refreshing.
Another kind, named Mokuri, is seen in other parts of the country,
where long-continued heat parches the soil. This plant
is an herbaceous creeper, and deposits under ground a number of tubers,
some as large as a man's head, at spots in a circle a yard or more,
horizontally, from the stem. The natives strike the ground
on the circumference of the circle with stones, till, by hearing
a difference of sound, they know the water-bearing tuber to be beneath.
They then dig down a foot or so, and find it.
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