VILLA GARDENS EAST OF FUNCHAL 49 



certainly pleasanter to walk upon, and in spring, 

 when flowers spring up in every direction, many 

 a little treasure appears between the stones. One 

 I remember I could never regard as a weed, though 

 many people seemed merely to look upon it as 

 such, was Anamoiheca cruenta, a tiny little bulb 

 which bears very brilliant salmon-pink blossoms 

 in clusters of five or six, each with a deep crimson 

 mark in it. It is a native of the Cape, from where 

 it was no doubt originally imported, and seems to 

 sow itself freely. The borders are devoted to 

 large clumps of such plants as eupatoriums, 

 salvias, euphorbias, pelargoniums, albizzias, justicias, 

 begonias, crinums, and imantophyllums, while in 

 the centre of the garden rose -beds carpeted 

 with freesias, and beds of the dark purple helio- 

 trope, pink begonias, and lilac stocks, provide 

 good masses of colour. Over the wall at one 

 end of the garden, which is the boundary wall 

 of the garden proper, hang great bushes of 

 poinsettias, daturas, and large clumps of echiums, 

 and on the top of the low wall on the other side, 

 large pots of azaleas, diosmas, begonias, and ivy- 

 leaf geraniums stand with very good effect. 



Yet another of these little terrace gardens has 

 been devoted entirely to the culture of blue and 



7 



