TREES AND SHRUBS 125 



The camphor-trees are at their best in spring, 

 when they are covered with their delicate young 

 green shoots, generally of a very light green, but 

 occasionally having brilliant red shoots. The trees 

 attain to a large size, though not assuming the 

 gigantic proportions which they reach in their 

 native land, Japan. That most uninteresting of 

 all trees the plane-tree has been planted along 

 the beds of the rivers in the town ; and the 

 oaks are in almost perpetual foliage, as the young 

 leaves appear before the old ones have really 

 fallen. 



Grrevillea robusta is common in gardens, where, 

 having shed its leaves in winter, the trees are showy 

 in the early summer months, being covered with 

 yellow flowers ; but the palm for flowering trees 

 must be given to the Jacaranda mimosafolia, a 

 native of Brazil. Having also shed its long fern- 

 like foliage in the late winter months, early in May 

 the tree bursts into a cloud of blue blossoms, almost 

 as blue as the sky above. The tree is a fairly 

 common one in and about Funchal, and the " blue 

 trees," as they are generally called, are the admired 

 of all beholders during the few weeks they are in 

 bloom. Nature has done well in ordaining that the 

 foliage should fall before the tree blossoms, as the 



