PART v. VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE. 53 



no sustenance. Some date palms are there to be seen, 

 but only as curiosities in rich men's gardens, for they 

 seldom or never bear any fruit, the summer being 

 neither hot enough, nor dry and stimulating enough, for 

 them. In place however of dates, and precisely because 

 the Madeiran summers are cool, the winters warm, and 

 the air nearly saturated with moisture the whole twelve 

 months through, therefore the custard-apple tree (Annona 

 squamosa) of more decidedly tropic lands goes on with 

 its greener growth all the spring, summer, and autumn, 

 and presents its perfected fruit at Christmas. 1 



Still better do some of the native trees of steamy 

 regions in South America, and more especially in Mada- 

 gascar, suit Madeira : and there is a grand form of tree 

 Strelitzia from there (a Urania), forming patriarchal 

 clumps of grandest foliage, with plantain-like leaves, but 

 longer stalks, shaggy contorted stems of all ages, and 

 weird flowers like jackals' faces looking straight out at 

 you with pricked-up ears ; without which plant apparently 

 no gentleman's garden in and around Funchal would 

 now be deemed complete. While if, like Madagascar 

 with her chameleons, Madeira is overrun with little 

 lizards, blue, green, yellow, darting about here, there, 

 and everywhere, she has none of the serpents of Syria, 

 the cobras of Egypt, or the deadly vipers of the African 

 desert. 



Arums, sweet-potatoes, bamboos, of course abound ; 



1 The market price quoted by Robert White is lod. to 2s. 6d. per dozen. 



