200 POPULAR GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



hanging about the trees with that kind of ease which plants, 

 as well as people, feel most of in their own home. 



Before we leave America we make acquaintance in the 

 territory of Honduras with the Mahogany-trees (Swietenia), 

 which supply most of the Mahogany which is imported into 

 England. And now, we hardly know what to do about the 

 "West Indies ; they are so altered by cultivation, that it is 

 almost impossible to tell what their appearance originally 

 was ; there is indeed a rich store of Terns and Orchises to 

 be met with there, but with a lack of materials for a good 

 general sketch, it would be almost useless to mention the 

 names of some few plants (which we all know grow there, 

 but which convey no general idea of the character which 

 vegetation gives to the landscape) ; such, for instance, as 

 those different trees of the Myrtle tribe ; the one which pro- 

 duces a kind of wild Clove, Eugenia Caryophyllus, or that 

 from which the berries called Allspice are gathered, Myrtus 

 Pimenta, or another of the same beautiful tribe, from whose 

 succulent berries Guava jelly is made. Besides these we 

 know we should see the Cocoa-palm growing in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the coast; and the hedges adorned with the 

 rich scarlet flowers of the beautiful Barbadoes flower-fence 

 (Poinciana pulcherrima) ; and great fields of rice, looking 



