240 POPULAR GEOGRAPHY OP PLANTS. 



retirement, being never gregarious or collected into large 

 groups."* 



It is not till we have forsaken the region of these sombre 

 Perns that we can forget their saddening influence ; but the 

 wonderfully luxuriant vegetation which, as we mount higher, 

 we find surrounding us at an elevation of some 4000 feet, 

 soon wins us back to a happier mood; as we follow the 

 windings of a stream at the foot of a waterfall (the bed 

 of which is now nearly dry), we still see the trees, which 

 here are of a middle size, festooned with crimson-flowered 

 Fuchsias; and to whichever side we look some sight of 

 beauty meets our eyes. On a slanting bank by the side of 

 the fall grows a dark red-blossomed Amaryllis, and, near 

 the same spot, several bushes of a plant called Pleroma, of 

 the Melastoma family: the symmetry of its leaves and 

 beauty of its flowers are peculiarly gratifying to the eye; 

 the curved nerves of the perfect-shaped leaves are very 

 strongly developed, and the large, deep violet blossoms 

 are formed of five most regular petals, each about an inch 

 in length ; no description can convey an idea of its beauty. 

 Here too a red-blossomed Esterkazya (belonging to the Scro- 

 is contrasted by the large white flowers of " a 



* Von Martius. 



