Mother-in-law’s tongue is not a euphemism – this is the plant’s actual common name! These are fairly common plants round here and even though they look thick and full of liquid, their leaves are actually quite fibrous. They are traditionally used to make string or rope simply by scraping off the “skin” of the leaf to uncover the fibre itself which is woven together to make rope of incredible strength. Because of the hot sun the ground here gets extremely hot and of course the thorns (excuse the pun!) can be quite a pain when walking around barefoot. To solve this problem local tribesmen used to make shoes from these leaves. They would use a couple of leaves to make the tie-strings they needed and then leave two leaves whole to act as the soles of their shoes. This also gives an idea of just how large these leaves can get – at least big enough to cover the whole of the sole of your foot. And these plants are not too difficult to find as they are not easily mistaken for other plants, being quite unique-looking out in the bush.
