VEGETATION OF TIJUCA. 341 



July 22 was a day of great enjoyment, devoted to 

 the immediate neighbourhood of Tijuca, where objects 

 of interest were so abundant as to furnish ample 

 occupation for many days. I have said that the place 

 is almost surrounded by the forest which spreads over 

 the adjoining hills. I now learned that less than fifty 

 years before, at a time when coffee-planting in Brazil 

 became a mania, and was counted on as everywhere a 

 certain source of wealth, the aboriginal forest which 

 covered the country was completely cleared, and 

 coffee-planting commenced on the largest scale. 

 Experience soon proved that the conditions either of 

 soil or climate were unfavourable, and after a few 

 years the land was again abandoned to the native 

 vegetation. About thirty-five years had sufficed to 

 produce a new forest, which in other lands might be 

 supposed to be the growth of centuries. The trees 

 averaged from two to three feet in diameter, and 

 many were at least seventy feet in height. One of 

 the largest is locally called ipa ; it belongs to the 

 leguminous family, has a trunk nearly quite bare, and 

 the upper branches bore masses of cream-coloured 

 flowers ; but, finding it impossible to obtain flower or 

 fruit, I have been unable to identify it. The vegeta- 

 tion here appeared to be even more luxuriant than 

 that of Petropolis, and to indicate a somewhat higher 

 mean temperature. The proportion of tree ferns was 

 decidedly greater, and a good many conspicuous 

 plants not seen there were here abundant. Som.e of 

 these, such as Bignonia vemista, Allamanda, etc., may 

 have strayed from the gardens ; but many more ap- 

 peared to be certainly indigenous. Of flowering 



