38 FLOWERS AND GARDENS OF MADEIRA 



almost opposite to the hotel in the grounds of Casa 

 Branca for a few short weeks in the year the avenue 

 of Poinsettia pulcherrima interspersed with date 

 palms and clumps of strelitzias is worth seeing. The 

 poinsettia blooms are almost the largest I have ever 

 seen, measuring quite eighteen inches in diameter 

 from point to point of the scarlet leaves. Like the 

 daisy-tree, the poinsettia flowers on the young 

 wood, and throws out fresh branches six to ten feet 

 long, which can be cut back in January, when the 

 beauty of the blossoms is gone and the foliage 

 becomes an unsightly yellow and at length drops 

 altogether. When seen growing in all their 

 luxuriant and garish splendour, it is difficult to 

 remember that it is the same plant that one has 

 seen in a weakly and attenuated form in our 

 English stove-houses, with one poor little flower- 

 head at the end of a single stem imperfectly clad 

 with sickly foliage. Poinsettias seem to rejoice in 

 rich soil, and they appear to revel in the liberal 

 feeding of the adjoining banana plantations, which, 

 no doubt, they deprive of a good deal of nourish- 

 ment ; but they well repay their owner, as in the 

 glow of the western sun they provide a veritable 

 feast of colour all through December. 



