\ f ( } 
98 REV. F, A. WALKER, D.D., F.L.S., } 
of the tropics, who picture to themselves the chendone: and 
brilliancy of the flowers and the magnificent appearance of 
hundreds of forest trees covered with masses of coloured 
blossoms, will be surprised to hear that though vegetation in 
Aru is highly luxuriant and varied, and would afford 
abundance of fine and curious plants to adorn our hot-houses, 
yet bright and showy flowers are, as a general rule, altogether — 
absent, or so very scarce as to produce no effect whatever on — 
the general scenery. | | 
“Tt is true that Aru seemed to me exceptionally poor in. 
flowers, but this is only an exaggeration of a general tropical 
feature, for my whole experience in the equatorial regions of 
the West and the Hast has convinced me that in the most 
luxuriant parts of the tropics flowers are less abundant, on 
the average less showy, and are far less effective in adding 
colour to the landscape than in temperate climates. I have 
never seen in the tropics such brilliant masses of colour as 
even Hngland can show in her furze-clad commons, her 
heathery mountain sides, her glades of wild hyacinths, her 
fields of poppies, her meadows of buttercups and orchises,— 
carpets of yellow, purple, azure blue, and fiery crimson, which 
the tropics can rarely exhibit. We have smaller masses of. 
colour in our hawthorn and crab-trees, our holly and mountain 
ash, our broom, foxgloves, primroses, and purple vetches, 
which clothe with gay colours the whole length and breadth of | 
our land. | 7 
‘‘ It is very easy to see what has led to this erroneous view 
of the nature of tropical vegetation. In our hot-houses, and _ 
at our Hower shows, we gather together the finest flowermg 
plants from the most distant regions of the earth, and exhibit 
them in a proximity to each other which never occurs in 
nature. A hundred distinct plants, all with bright, or 
strange, or gorgeous flowers, make a wonderful show when — 
brought together; but perhaps no two of these plants could 
be seen together in a state of nature, each inhabiting a distant 
region or a different station, Again, all moderately warm — 
extra-lHuropean countries are mixed up with the tropics in 
general estimation, and a vague idea is formed that whatever is 
pre-eminently beautiful must come from the hottest parts of 
the earth. But the fact is quite the contrary. Rhododendrons 
and azaleas are plants of temperate regions, the grandest 
lihes are from temperate Japan, and a large proportion of our 
most showy flowering plants are natives of the Himalayas, of 
the Cape, of the United States, of Chili, or of China and 
Japan, all temperate regions,” &c, 
