Aspects of Natuke. 493 



soms, will be surprised to hear, that though vegetation in 

 Aru is highly luxuriant and varied, and would altbrd abun- 

 dance of line and curious plants to adorn our hothouses, yet 

 bright and showy flowers are, as a general rule, altogther 

 absent, or so very scarce as to produce no eftect whatever on 

 the general scenery. To give particulars : I have visited five 

 distinct localities in the islands, I have wandered daily in the 

 forests, and have passed along upwards of a hundred miles 

 of coast and river during a period of six months, much of it 

 very fine weather, and till just as I was about to leave, I 

 never saw a single plant of striking brilliancy or beauty, 

 hardly a shrub equal to a hawthorn, or a climber equal to a 

 honeysuckle ! It can not 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- 

 Avhite 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 Ipomajas, 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 efiective in adding color to the 

 landscape than in temperate climates. I have never seen in 

 the tropics such brilliant masses of color as even England can 

 show in her furze-clad commons, her heathery mountain-sides, 

 her glades of wild hyacinths, her field of poppies, her mead- 

 ows of buttercups and orchises — carpets of yellow, purple, 

 azure-blue, and fiery crimson, which the tropics can rarely 

 exhibit. We have smaller masses of color in our hawthorn 

 and crab trees, our holly and mountain-ash, our broom, fox- 

 gloves, primroses, and purple vetches, which clothe with gay 



