114 FLOWERS AND GARDENS OF MADEIRA 



The vine as it is called the grape-flower vine, 

 from the resemblance of its blossoms to a bunch of 

 grapes is a native of China and Japan, and also 

 of parts of North America, which accounts for the 

 fact that it received the name of wistaria (by which 

 it is known all over the Western world) from one 

 Caspar Wistar, a medical professor in the University 

 of Pennsylvania. In Japan the plant is known as 

 fuji, and is so universally admired that, in common 

 with many other flowers, it is made the excuse for 

 many a flower-feast, when hundreds, thousands, 

 and even tens of thousands of pleasure-seekers will 

 hold their revels, or sit quietly sipping their tea 

 under a roof of the royal fuji. Though in Madeira 

 it is not the fashion of the country to hold flower- 

 feasts, or to make flowers the theme of poems and 

 plays, or to regard wistaria as an emblem of gentle- 

 ness and obedience, as is the case in its Eastern 

 home, yet in this land of its adoption it comes in 

 for its full share of admiration. Corridors and walls 

 which have been passed by unnoticed through the 

 winter months, having been only clad with the 

 long, bare, leafless branches, the last leaves having 

 fallen early in December, suddenly become trans- 

 formed, and for a few short days all too short, 

 alas ! become the centre of attraction in the 



