36 FLOWERS AND GARDENS OF MADEIRA 



their lovely soft blue blossoms in late November 

 and December. Then comes a season of rest, 

 though the plant is seldom entirely devoid of 

 colour, and in early spring fresh shoots give 

 promise of a wealth of blossom again in April 

 and May. 



Bougainvilleas have been planted with a lavish 

 hand, but unluckily with no regard for colour. I 

 sometimes wondered if the Portuguese gardeners 

 are all colour-blind, as it is by no means uncommon 

 to see a bright purple bougainvillea planted side by 

 side with a scarlet one, and as likely as not, inter- 

 laced with a flaming orange bignonia, while the 

 bright pink Charles Turner geranium grows happily 

 below. In Madeira gardens colour runs riot, and 

 I own that the prolonged flowering season of 

 many of the creepers and shrubs makes the colour 

 scheme more difficult than it is in our English 

 gardens. 



The great clumps of Crinum Powellei are a 

 remarkable feature of this garden, when late in 

 April the great bulbs send up their spikes of either 

 pure white flowers or white delicately flushed with 

 pink. The flowers come in six to ten in an umbel, 

 on stems three to five feet in height, and are very 

 freely produced large clumps sending up a dozen or 



