pink Antigonon surely a sufficient variety of 

 massive coloring to please the most exacting. 



The growth of all the vegetation was marvel- 

 ous, especially that of the rain-tree and the giant 

 bamboo. The former, though planted as small 

 trees two to three feet high and as thin as slate- 

 pencils in an avenue six feet from each side of a 

 carriage drive, at the end of their second year had 

 met and formed an archway eighteen to twenty 

 feet high over the road. At five years of age their 

 stems attained a thickness of eighteen inches to 

 two feet, and their height, with a wide spread of 

 foliage, over forty feet. 



The growth of a bamboo is perhaps even more 

 remarkable. The clump of Bambusa gigantea 

 would in one season throw up fifteen to twenty 

 stems five to six inches in diameter to the height 

 of about fifty to sixty feet in two months! Im- 

 agine the vigorous constructive elaboration that 

 must take place to build up such a mass of sub- 

 stantial material from the soil and the atmosphere, 

 and what force must be exerted to draw the neces- 

 sary constituents together and adjust them to 

 their new structure ! 



68 



