Spaniard, which I have mentioned before, is simply detestable;
it has a strong smell, half turpentine half celery.
It is sometimes
called spear-grass, and grows to about the size of a mole-hill, all over
the back country everywhere, as thick as mole-hills in a very mole-hilly
field at home. Its blossoms, which are green, insignificant, and ugly,
are attached to a high spike bristling with spears pointed every way and
very acutely; each leaf terminates in a strong spear, and so firm is it,
that if you come within its reach, no amount of clothing about the legs
will prevent you from feeling its effects. I have had my legs marked
all over by it. Horses hate the spaniard - and no wonder. In the back
country, when travelling without a track, it is impossible to keep your
horse from yawing about this way and that to dodge it, and if he
encounters three or four of them growing together, he will jump over
them or do anything rather than walk through. A kind of white wax,
which burns with very great brilliancy, exudes from the leaf. There are
two ways in which spaniard may be converted to some little use. The
first is in kindling a fire to burn a run: a dead flower-stalk serves
as a torch, and you can touch tussock after tussock literally [Greek
text which cannot be reproduced] lighting them at right angles to the
wind.
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