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.
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