B02 tbreiitn Notices. — North America. 



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sherterfcd from the direct rays of the sun, are seen ascending on every side 

 even the hirge branches. So great is the variety of vegetable beauties which 

 sometiraes'^decorate a single trunk, that a considerable space, in a European 

 garden, would be required to contain them. Several rivulets of the purest 

 water urge their meandering course through the brushwood : various plants 

 of humbler growth, which love humidity, display their beautiful verdure on 

 the edges, and are sheltered by the wider-spreading arms of the mango 

 (Mangifera Indica), mahogany (Swietenea Mahogani), teak (Tectona gran- 

 dis). Mimosa Lebbe/c, nilotica. Catechu, &c., and other woods remarkable 

 for their stateliness, and clothed in wild and magnificent pomp. The vege- 

 tation every where displays that vigorous aspect and brightness of colour so 

 characteristic of the tropics. Here and there, as if for contrast, huge 

 masses of trap, blackened by the action of the atmosphere and decayed 

 Trem^llae, present themselves. Those blocks which in colder climates would 

 be doomed to eternal barrenness, or at most would only nourish the pale 

 and sickly Z/ichen, here give support to creeping plants of every form and 

 colour, which cover, with yellow, green, and crimson, the sides of the sable 

 rock. In their crevices the succulent species are daily renewed, and pre- 



6 are a soil for larger tenants ; from their summits the old man's beard, the 

 -hipsalis, and similar weeds, which seem to draw their nourishment from 

 the air, hang pendent, floating like tattered drapery at the pleasure of the 

 winds. At a distance is seen the trumpet tree (of Brown), whose leaves 

 £eem made of silver plates, as the blast reverses them in the beams of the 

 mid-day sun. In a solitary spot rises a wild fig tree, one of the gigantic 

 productions of the torrid zone. Nature in her playful moment had decked 

 this scene for her amusement, and some retiring thoughtful scholar, on the 

 massive ribs which, like the buttresses of a tower, support the base, has 

 painted, in large white characters, the names of her favourite muses. All 

 the beauties which nature has lavished on the equinoctial regions are here 

 displayed in their fairest and most majestic forms. Above the rocky 

 summit of the hill the arborescent ferns (Cyathea aspera ? arborea, &c.), 

 the principal ornaments of our scenery, appear at intervals. Convolvuli and 

 other creepers have climbed their high stems, and suspended their painted 

 garlands. The fruits of our country are scattered around within our reach, 

 and the wide green leaves of the Mijsa paradisiaca andsapi^ntum andHeli- 

 conia caribas'a and Bihai, planted beneath, serve to contain them for our 

 refreshment, and to convey water from the neighbouring spring. On every 

 side innumerable palms, of various genera, whose leaves curl like plumes, 

 shoot up majestically their bare and even columns above the wood. The 

 portion below the house of the superintendent has been devoted to the 

 reception of the spices, the medicinal, and other more useful plants, which 

 are placed in situations most favourable to their growth, rather than with a 

 view to scientific order. In the same group are seen the precious nutmeg 

 (iWyristica officinalis) exposing, in the centre of its bursting drupe, the seed 

 surrounded by the crimson mace; the Cassia fistula with its pendent pods 

 of curious length ; the magnificent Lagerstrce'mza reginae displaying one 

 extended sheet of lovely blossoms; the Lecythis bracteata, with its sweet 

 and painted blossoms, scattering its fetid fruit, so much resembling the fatal 

 shell, that one might suppose a company of artillery had bivouacked in its 

 shade ; the calabash, with its large green pericarp, so useful in the poor 

 man's hut ; and the screw pine, with its fruit carved in rude and curious 

 workmanship, and its ribbed stem supported on a bundle of faggots. As- 

 sembled together are the various fruits transplanted from the islands of Asia 

 and other distant lands, or the nations of the Antilles, attracting, by their 

 nectared flowers, the gaudy humming-birds. You behold the bread fruit of 

 the Friendly Islands, the most precious gift of Pomona, and the Jack of 

 India (Artocarpus integrifolia) bearing its ponderous fruit of the weight of 

 60 or 70 lbs. on the trunk and arms, huge deformities for the lap of Flora. 



