82 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



floral meccas of the knowing ones. The high hu- 

 midity of the tropics and the relatively small per- 

 centage of sunshine due to the prevalence of low- 

 hanging clouds that every now and then precipitate 

 themselves in torrential rains, make for rank 

 growth of foliage rather than for any showy display 

 of flowers. Tropical vegetation runs markedly to 

 leaf and branch, and the blossoms, while often of in- 

 dividual beauty and wonder, are more or less lost 

 in a riot of enveloping green. In the almost con- 

 tinuous sunshine of our southeastern deserts, on the 

 contrary, where the average annual rainfall is but 

 four or five inches, the florescence is abundant and 

 often of great brilliancy on plants with relatively in- 

 conspicuous foliage, or even none. To be sure, the 

 extreme aridity causes the season of flowers to be 

 very short a few weeks of activity in the spring 

 and then our desert plant life relapses into quiet 

 dormancy until another spring comes round; but, 

 as the Professor cheerfully puts it, * ' Though it is a 

 short life, it is a merry one." 



So, as our course carried us straight out into the 

 sun baked desert, it soon became evident that here, 

 far from haunts of men, God had planted a wonder- 

 ful wild garden. Man, in his arrogant way, assumes 

 that the prophet's vision of the desert's rejoicing 



