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Originally Posted by Bethberry
So, all that tamarisk and terebinth, the olives and the bay, the juniper, the saxifrage and stonecrop is simply and plainly a plot device.
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The harshness of the landscape in Chapters 1 to 3, and the enormity of it which the Hobbits must overcome, also serves to underline just how little they are, both physically and metaphorically. They not only struggle with the logistics of getting down cliff faces but they are plunged, effectively alone, into an old and vast landscape, one which is treacherous and full of terror, as seen in the Dead Marshes. Here they are just two Hobbits trying to pick their way across the remains of an ancient battlefield, small and insignificant in comparison to what went before. We know what they carry, and just how important their mission is and therefore how far they really
are from being insignificant, but the enormity of the landscape serves to remind us how vulnerable they are.
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They followed a stream that went quickly down before them. Presently it brought them to a small clear lake in a shallow dell: it lay in the broken ruins of an ancient stone basin, the carven rim of which was almost wholly covered with mosses and rose-brambles; iris-swords stood in ranks about it, and water-lily leaves floated on its dark, gently rippling surface; but it was deep and fresh, and spilled ever softly out over a stony lip at the far end.
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This passage shows us how at one time, this area must have been populated, that it even had such frivolous things as gardens with water features. Yet just as we are feeling safe and that the Hobbits are in a benevolent part of Middle Earth, Sam finds the Orcs' fire and we are not only reminded of the ever present peril they are in, but we get another reminder of how Sauron's servants have despoiled a beautiful place.