A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



painting, and to judge by the pictures of tropical landscape which 

 I have seen hitherto, this does not appear to have been discovered 

 as yet. 



Stately umbrella-shaped trees lift themselves majestically above 

 the Brazilian forest, and extend their spreading boughs in peaceful 

 majesty far above their companions. Their feathery foliage is of 

 such a deep green that they always reminded me of the pines 

 of the Mediterranean : so much so that I was sometimes deceived 

 into thinking them pines. These splendid "umbrella acacias," as 

 one might call them, belong to the Leguminosae, although they 

 are of quite a different species to our acacias. Since these trees, like 

 their relatives, our sweet-peas and our acacias, bear beautiful and 

 fragrant blossoms, they give a quite peculiar charm to the forest. 

 In November the woods on Corcovado near Rio were full of lovely 

 fragrance, and here or there, above the billows of forest that tumbled 

 down the hillside, rose the golden-yellow domes of the acacias. 



Another family of plants, the Bignoniaceae, is represented in the 

 forests of Brazil by trees with magnificent flowers. From its feathery 

 foliage, mimosa-leaved like the acacia, the Jacaranda puts forth 

 panicles of violet trumpet-shaped blossoms. The bow-wood tree 

 also, the Pau d'arco, a relative of the Jacaranda, whose elastic wood 

 is used by the Indians for making their bows, has flowers of similar 

 shape and colour. It was in the south of the State of Pernambuco 

 that I first beheld the wonderful sight of bow- wood trees in blossom. 

 I was wandering through a valley whose sloping sides were covered 

 with meadows, running up to the wooded heights, in which cattle 

 were grazing, and through which little streams came splashing 

 downwards ; a landscape whose fresh and endearing beauty reminded 

 me of the Black Forest. But the dark green of the trees was very 

 different from the greens of Europe, and above this dark green 

 rose on every side domes of light violet-blue blossom. So tender was 

 the colour that it seemed to float above the blossoming trees like a 

 bluish mist. Other tree-tops there shone yellow, and others had 

 just unfolded their young leaves, which gleamed like silver. 



Once I came upon such a bow-wood tree standing alone in a 

 green meadow. Through the blue mist all the boughs were visible, 

 and perched on the boughs, like crests of great green fleshy leaves, 

 Gravatas or Bromelias were growing. In form and colour both it 

 was like an incomparable work of art. 



On the slopes of the ranges to the north of Rio the forest blossoms 

 in the Brazilian autumn (when it is spring in Europe). After leaving 

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