646 The Colors of Animals and Plants. — [ November, 
hardy plants of our cold temperate zone equal if they do not 
surpass the productions of the tropics. Let us only remember 
such gorgeous tribes of flowers as the roses, peonies, hollyhocks, 
and antirrhinums, the laburnum, Wistaria, and lilac, the lilies, 
irises, and tulips, the hyacinths, anemones, gentians, and poppies, 
and even our humble gorse, broom, and heather; and we may 
defy any tropical country to produce masses of floral color in 
greater abundance and variety. It may be true that individual 
tropical shrubs and flowers do surpass éverything in the rest of 
the world, but that is to be expected, because the tropical zone 
comprises a much greater land area than the two temperate zones, 
while, owing to its more favorable climate, it produces a still 
larger proportion of species of plants and a great number of, 
- peculiar natural orders. 
Direct observation in tropical forests, plains, and mountains 
fully supports this view. Occasionally we are startled by some 
gorgeous mass of color, but as a rule we gaze upon an endless 
expanse of green foliage, only here and there enlivened by not 
very conspicuous flowers. Even the orchids, whose gorgeous blos- 
soms adorn our stoves, form no exception to this rule. It is only 
in favored spots that we find them in abundance; the species with 
small and inconspicuous flowers greatly preponderate, and the 
flowering season of each kind being of short duration they rarely 
produce any marked effect of color amid the vast masses of foli- 
age which surround them. An experienced collector in the east- 
ern tropics once told me that although a single mountain in Java 
had produced three hundred species of Orchidex only about two 
per cent. of the whole were sufficiently ornamental or showy fo 
be worth sending home as a commercial speculation. The Al- 
pine meadows and rock slopes, the open plains of the Cape of Good 
Hope or of Australia, and the flower prairies of North America 
development of color in nature is directly dependent on, ale 
any way proportioned to, the amount of solar heat and light a 
entirely unsupported by facts. Strange to say, however, 
: t 
pentstemons, rhododendrons, and many other flowers; and if these were all brou gh ; 
together in well-grown specimens they would produce a grand effect. B 
easier and more profitable for our nursery-men to grow varieties of one 
which all require a very similar culture, rather than fifty distinct spectes, 
would require special treatment, the result being that the varied beauty sta 
perate flora is even now hardly known except to botanists:and to A few ama 
