THE PLANT. II 



plants are in full vigour, spring clusteS-^-twelve 

 to sixte^n_joVxwer=b^ds, these opening at the blossom- 

 ing season witrT great rapidity. The planter goes 

 over his young estate one morning, probably, in 

 March, and sees the long arrays of healthy shrubs, 

 watched and tended with so much care, heavy with 

 green clustering buds full of promise for a bumper 

 crop, and he rises a morning or two afterwards 

 to behold the whole extent of hill and valley under 

 cultivation a wide-spreading expanse of snow-white 

 blossom, almost hiding the dark green carpet of 

 foliage, and reminding him of hoar frosts in his 

 own far away country, or of its hawthorn hedges 

 in May. The scent from this mass of bloom is 

 very powerful. My own coolies have frequently 

 asked for extra remuneration when carrying letters, 

 or otherwise passing through estates in the full flush 

 of blossoming, declaring such duty frequently gave 

 them attacks of fever. However this may be, the 

 Coffee flower, in colour, odour, and form, is pleasant 

 enough to English senses a great favourite with 

 the natives for decking their images of Buddha, &c. 

 Botanically it is said to be " axillary, sessile, calyx 

 monopetalous, funnel-shaped, and cut at the limb 

 into fine, reflexed, lanceolate segments." 



There are generally two sometimes three 

 relays of blossom before all the buds have arrived 

 at maturity (which is, no doubt, owing to the 

 number of buds in each cluster preventing their 

 all coming out together), but the principal one is 



