6o TROPIC DAYS 



being comparatively insignificant, while the numerous 

 stamens attain a length of four inches and are of a 

 lovely shade of red. Like its relative, the cockatoo 

 apple, the flowers of the Barringtonia have a meaty 

 smell, which seems to attract many species of insects. 

 In keeping with other characteristics, the fruit is large, 

 consisting of a thick, woody covering, as if Nature 

 designed that the single seeds should be adequately 

 protected during a protracted oceanic drift. It is often 

 cast up on the sand, but the seed does not germinate 

 as consistently as that of the cannon-ball-tree; but 

 when it does it rarely fails to become established. 



Two species of Ficus deserve to be mentioned, though 

 this catalogue does not claim to be exhaustive. Ficus 

 fasciculata, as the title implies, bears its inedible fruit 

 in bundles, branches, trunk, and exposed roots, being 

 alike fertile, and is almost as retentive of life as the 

 cockatoo apple. Opposita is remarkable for varied 

 form of foliage, referred to particularly elsewhere, and 

 for the sweetness of its fruit. 



One of the loveliest and most remarkable plants of 

 the beach is the seacoast laburnum {Sophora tomentosa), 

 with its pinnate leaves of sage green, hoary with silvery 

 fur as soft as seal-skin, and bearing terminal spikes of 

 golden flowers with scent invoking slight comparison 

 with mignonette. The thick, silky leaves, the yellow 

 flowers, and the strange pods, are distinctive quahties, 

 which atone for the absence of the special sw^eetness 

 of the garden favourite. The pods begin as slender, 

 silvery, dangling threads, which speedily lengthen and 

 become constricted. When the breeze flusters the 

 shrubs, revealing the undersides of the leaves at a 

 reflective angle and shaking the tasselled pods, and 

 the splashes of gold sway hither and thither, the 

 character of the shrub as one of the most attractive 



