112 FLOWERS AND GARDENS OF MADEIRA 



plant is an ornament at all seasons ; its beautiful 

 glabrous foliage seems to retain its freshness at all 

 seasons of the year, and when the plant is covered 

 with its bunches of large white blossoms, each with 

 its deep red-purple throat, which seems to reflect a 

 shade of purple on to the white petals, it is one of 

 the most beautiful of all creepers. 



From the list of winter creepers the Thunbergia 

 laurifolia, with its bunches of grey-blue gloxinia- 

 shaped blossoms, cannot be omitted ; though the 

 beauty of the plant is somewhat spoilt by the habit 

 of the dead blossoms hanging on instead of falling, 

 and marring, by their brown, shrivelled appearance, 

 all the freshness of the newly developed flowers. 

 The plant always recalls to my mind the reason 

 given by the Japanese for not admiring the national 

 flower of England the rose as they complain that 

 it clings with ungraceful tenacity to life, as though 

 loath or afraid to die, preferring to rot on its stem 

 rather than drop untimely; unlike the blossoms 

 of spring, ever ready to depart life at the call of 

 Nature. Such is certainly the case with thunbergia. 

 The creeper is also a dangerous poacher, and, unless 

 kept within bounds, will soon smother and over- 

 whelm any shrub or tree that it may take possession 

 of, though never in Madeira attaining to the vast 



