The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
- Page 25 of 466 - First - Home
It has a soft, indented stem,
which runs up quite straight to a height of from 15 to 30
Feet, and
is crowned by a profusion of large, deeply indented leaves, with
long foot-stalks, and among, as well as considerably below these,
are the flowers or the fruit, in all stages of development. This,
when ripe, is bright yellow, and the size of a musk melon. Clumps
of bananas, the first sight of which, like that of the palm,
constitutes a new experience, shaded the native houses with their
wonderful leaves, broad and deep green, from five to ten feet long.
The breadfruit is a superb tree, about 60 feet high, with deep
green, shining leaves, a foot broad, sharply and symmetrically cut,
worthy, from their exceeding beauty of form, to take the place of
the acanthus in architectural ornament, and throwing their pale
green fruit into delicate contrast. All these, with the exquisite
rose apple, with a deep red tinge in its young leaves, the fan palm,
the chirimoya, and numberless others, and the slender shafts of the
coco palms rising high above them, with their waving plumes and
perpetual fruitage, were a perfect festival of beauty.
In the deep shade of this perennial greenery the people dwell. The
foreign houses show a very various individuality. The peculiarity
in which all seem to share is, that everything is decorated and
festooned with flowering trailers. It is often difficult to tell
what the architecture is, or what is house and what is vegetation;
for all angles, and lattices, and balustrades, and verandahs are
hidden by jessamine or passion-flowers, or the gorgeous flame-like
Bougainvillea.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 25 of 466
Words from 6593 to 6876
of 127766
