TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 227 



his noble commander. Nature always maintains 

 her creations unimpaired by the influence of time, 

 and they survive all the monuments of human 

 greatness. It was, therefore, a very happy idea in 

 botany to perpetuate the names and merits of dis- 

 tinguished enquirers, by impressing them on flowers, 

 whose races never become extinct. 



When we landed on those low islands in the Bay 

 of Rio de Janeiro, we were astonished at the vigour 

 and luxuriance of their vegetation, which is occa- 

 sioned by their low damp situation, and the great 

 heat. The woods, in which there are, for the most 

 part, the same species of trees as on the continent, 

 but among them a proportionably far greater num- 

 ber of palms, especially the much-esteemed cab- 

 bage-palm *, are rendered almost impenetrable by 

 thick underwood, The rapidity with which the 

 vegetable world here passes through its various 

 stages, till it at length decays and rots away, is as 

 great as the impulse by which new creations con- 

 tinually arise on the remains of those that have 

 fallen to decay. Upon and near the largest trunks, 

 which, stretched out like enormous skeletons, sud- 

 denly return to the state of vegetable earth, we saw 

 a multitude of many-coloured fungi t spring up, an 



* Euterpe edulis, nob. The young leaves (palmito) are fre- 

 quently brought from these islands and the woods of the con- 

 tinent to the city markets. > ■ 



-j- Boletus sanguineus, Sw.; Trichia expansa, nob.; Stemo- 

 nitis fasciculata ; Sphaeria deusta, serpens, Pers., &c. 



Q 2 



