It Cannot Be Said That The Flowering Season Had
Not Arrived, For I Saw Many Herbs, Shrubs, And Forest Trees In
Flower, But All Had Blossoms Of A Green Or Greenish-White Tint,
Not Superior To Our Lime-Trees.
Here and there on the river banks
and coasts are a few Convolvulaceae, not equal to our garden
Ipomaeas, and in the deepest shades of the forest some fine
scarlet and purple Zingiberaceae, but so few and scattered as to
be nothing amid the mass of green and flowerless vegetation.
Yet
the noble Cycadaceae and screw-pines, thirty or forty feet high,
the elegant tree ferns, the lofty palms, and the variety of
beautiful and curious plants which everywhere meet the eye,
attest the warmth and moisture of the tropics, and the fertility
of the soil.
It is true that Aru seemed to me exceptionally poor in flowers,
but this is only an exaggeration of a general tropical feature;
for my whole experience in the equatorial regions of the west and
the east has convinced me, that in the most luxuriant parts of
the tropics, flowers are less abundant, on the average less
showy, and are far less effective in adding colour to the
landscape than in temperate climates. I have never seen in the
tropics such brilliant masses of colour as even England can show
in her furze-clad commons, her heathery mountain-sides, her
glades of wild hyacinths, her fields of poppies, her meadows of
buttercups and orchises - carpets of yellow, purple, azure-blue,
and fiery crimson, which the tropics can rarely exhibit. We, have
smaller masses of colour in our hawthorn and crab trees, our
holly and mountain-ash, our boom; foxgloves, primroses, and
purple vetches, which clothe with gay colours the whole length
and breadth of our land, These beauties are all common. They are
characteristic of the country and the climate; they have not to
be sought for, but they gladden the eye at every step. In the
regions of the equator, on the other hand, whether it be forest
or savannah, a sombre green clothes universal nature. You may
journey for hours, and even for days, and meet with nothing to
break the monotony. Flowers are everywhere rare, and anything at
all striking is only to be met with at very distant intervals.
The idea that nature exhibits gay colours in the tropics, and
that the general aspect of nature is there more bright and varied
in hue than with us, has even been made the foundation of
theories of art, and we have been forbidden to use bright colours
in our garments, and in the decorations of our dwellings, because
it was supposed that we should be thereby acting in opposition to
the teachings of nature. The argument itself is a very poor one,
since it might with equal justice be maintained, that as we
possess faculties for the appreciation of colours, we should make
up for the deficiencies of nature and use the gayest tints in
those regions where the landscape is most monotonous.
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