308 VEGETATION OF 



in the tropics, and thus masses of colour are less frequently 

 produced. Individual objects may be more brilliant and 

 striking, but the general effect will not be so great, as that of 

 a smaller number of less conspicuous plants, grouped together 

 in masses of various colours, so strikingly displayed in the 

 meadows and groves of the temperate regions. 



The changing hues of autumn, and the tender green of 

 spring, are particular beauties which are not seen in tropical 

 regions, and which are quite unsurpassed by anything that 

 exists there. The wide expanse of green meadows and rich 

 pastures is also wanting ; and, however much individual objects 

 may please and astonish, the effect of the distant landscape is 

 decidedly superior in the temperate parts of the world. 



The sensations of pleasure we experience on seeing natural 

 objects, depends much upon association of ideas with their 

 uses, their novelty, or their history. What causes the sensa- 

 tions we feel on gazing upon a waving field of golden corn ? 

 Not, surely, the mere beauty of the sight, but the associations 

 we connect with it. We look on it as a national blessing, as 

 the staff of life, as the most precious produce of the soil ; and 

 this makes it beautiful in our eyes. 



So, in the tropics, the broad-leaved banana, beautiful in 

 itself, becomes doubly so, when looked upon as producing a 

 greater quantity of food in a given time, and on a limited 

 space, than any other plant. We take it as a type of the 

 luxuriance of the tropics, — we look at its broad leaves, the 

 produce of six months' growth, — we think of its delicious and 

 wholesome fruit : and all this is beauty, as we gaze upon it. 



In the same manner, a field of sugar-cane or an extensive 

 plantation of cotton produces similar sensations : we think of 

 the thousands they will feed and clothe, and the thought 

 clothes them with beauty. 



Palms too are subject to the same influence. They are 

 elegant and graceful in themselves ; they are almost all useful 

 to man ; they are associated with the brightness and warmth 

 of the tropics : and thus they acquire an additional interest, a 

 new beauty. 



To the naturalist everything in the tropics acquires this kind 

 of interest, for some reason or other. One plant is a tropical 

 form, and he examines it with curiosity and delight. Another 

 is allied to some well-known European species, and this too 



