You
Cannot Imagine How Crowded Together This Tropical Vegetation Is.
There
is not room for half of it on the ground, so it seeks and finds its
home high up on the strong, majestic trees which bear it up into the
sunshine, where, indeed one has to look for most of the flowers.
It is glorious to see the vegetation of eternal summer and the lavish
prodigality of nature, and one revels among hothouse plants "at home,"
and all the splendor of gigantic leaves, and the beauty and grace of
palms, bamboos, and tree-ferns; the great, gaudy flowers are as
marvelous as the gaudy plumaged birds, and I feel that no words can
convey an idea of the beauty and magnificence of an equatorial jungle;
but the very permanence of the beauty is almost a fault. I should soon
come to long for the burst of spring with its general tenderness of
green, and its great broad splashes of sociable flowers, its masses of
buttercups, or ox-eye daisies, or dandelions, and for the glories of
autumn with its red and gold, and leagues of purple heather. These
splendid orchids and other epiphytes grow singly. One sees one and not
another, there are no broad masses of color to blaze in the distance,
the scents are heavy and overpowering, the wealth is embarrassing. I
revel in it all and rejoice in it all; it is intoxicating, yet I am
haunted with visions of mossy banks starred with primroses and
anemones, of stream sides blue with gentian, of meadows golden with
buttercups, and fields scarlet with poppies, and in spite of my
enjoyment and tropical enthusiasm, I agree with Mr. Wallace and others
that the flowers of a temperate climate would give one more lasting
pleasure.
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