82 FLOWERS AND GARDENS OF MADEIRA 



grown the little garden centring in a sundial, 

 in which they were, no doubt, originally planted as 

 small shrubs in beds with neat box hedges. Here 

 are to be found tree-ferns, long rows of agapanthus, 

 and a great plantation of mimosa-trees, which is quite 

 a feature in the landscape in early spring, when 

 they are laden with their balls of yellow blossoms. 



In every direction in this district large clumps of 

 the foliage of the belladonna lilies are to be seen 

 in winter, on every bank, in every little garden : 

 giving promise of their glories to come in the 

 waning summer months. But in the grounds of 

 Quinta da Cova they are probably to be seen at 

 their very best, as here they have been more 

 collected together, and broad stretches of them 

 carpet the ground in thousands, beneath the 

 chestnut - trees. I remember once hearing a 

 traveller remark, who had passed through Madeira 

 in August, on his way to the Cape, and returned 

 again early in October, that when he first saw the 

 island "it was all blue," alluding to the effect of 

 the agapanthus and hydrangea blooms, and when 

 he returned it had changed, and was "all pink," 

 from the masses of belladonna lilies. 



