HIGH LIFE. 101 



most luxuriant : for lush ricbness of foliage and ' breadth 

 of tropic shade ' (to quote a noble lord) one must go, as 

 everyone knows, to tlie equatorial regions. But, con- 

 trary to the connnon opinion, the tropics, hoary shams, 

 aio not remarkable for the abundance or beauty of their 

 dowers. Quite otherwise, indeed : an unrelieved green 

 strilics the keynote of equatorial forests. This is my 

 own experience, and it is borne out (which is far more 

 important) by Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, who has seen 

 a wider range of the untouched tropics, in all four 

 hemispheres — northern, southern, eastern, western — 

 than any other man, I suppose, that ever lived on this 

 planet. And Mr. Wallace is tirm in his conviction that 

 the tropics in this respect are a complete fraud. Bright 

 llowers are there quite conspicuously absent. It is 

 rather in the cold and less favoured regions of the world 

 that one must look for fine floral displays and bright 

 masses of colour. Close up to the snow-line the wealth 

 of flowers is always the greatest. 



In order to understand this apparent paradox one 

 must remember that the highest type of flowers, from 

 the point of view of organisation, is not at the same time 

 by any means the most beautiful. On the contrary, 

 plants with very little special adaptation to any 

 particular insect, like the water-lilies and the poppies, are 

 obliged to flaunt forth m very brilliant hues, and to run 

 to very large sizes in order to attract the attention of a 

 great number of visitors, one or other of whom may 

 casually fertilise them ; while plants with very special 

 adaptations, like the sage and mint group, or the little 

 EngUsh orchids, are so cunningly arranged that they 



