^ JOUENAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



'visitor will probably land and will obtain his first near sight of the' 

 iisland. 



For my present purpose it is unnecessary to dwell long on the 

 Ibeauty, real though this is, of Suva. The gardens and open spaces, 

 even over-filled with luxuriant but too unrestrained tropical vegeta- 

 tion, are more or less bright throughout the year with the too 

 ubiquitous Hibiscus, Ixora, Dracaena, Oleander, Croton, Coleus, and 

 Bamboo. There are, however, two features in the vegetation outside 

 the garden limits proper which are so prominent as to demand a few 

 words of comment ; these are the ' Eain-trees ' and the * Ivi-trees ' — 

 the latter the so-called ' Tahiti chestnuts.' 



The rain-tree is the Inga Saman or Pithecolohium Saman of 

 botanists. It is a native of tropical America, but because of its beauty 

 and the splendid shade which it throws it has been carried by white 

 men to almost all tropical places, and has been largely planted as a 

 town and road-side tree. It well deserves this preferential treatment. 

 Under favourable circumstances it becomes a large tree with widely 

 spreading branches, affording deep and grateful shade. A friend of 

 mine, now dead, a good botanist and gardener, but not usually carry- 

 ing much poetry on the sleeve of his coat, used to say of certain 

 very perfect specimens of these trees, which, standing at wide intervals, 

 bordered a broad grass-edged but otherwise leafless tropical road, that 

 ;at mid-day they were to him as ' ' the shadow of a great rock in a 

 weary land. " 



But in Fiji the rain-trees, like most other trees, do not grow as 

 luxuriantly as in other tropical places, because of the occasional hurri- 

 canes. A row of these trees, planted quite long enough ago to have 

 become perfect specimens elsewhere, stands on the sea side of the road 

 for more than half a mile from the Suva landing- wharf up to the 

 entrance to the Government House land ; and twice during the six years 

 I knew them hurricanes have bowled them over like a set of ninepins ; 

 and twice, at my intercession, they have been successfully set up again. 

 But though under this treatment by nature and art they have not come 

 to perfection, yet for a few mornings each spring — for in Fiji at any 

 rate the rain-trees drop all their leaves during the winter of the dry 

 season — I have been refreshed by the pale bright green of the soft 

 young leaves, and the little tassels of pink flowers which at that season 

 burst from the swelling leaf-buds of the rain-trees. 



By the way, as I still often see in the corners of newspapei'S' 

 wonderful stories of the alleged reservoir-like qualities which are sup- 

 posed to give the popular name to this tree, I may as well here explain 

 the foundation of these yarns. It is noticeable that in very dry weather 

 more moisture reaches the ground covered by the spreading branches 

 of this tree than elsewhere. What happens is that the leaflets seem to 

 have some power oi accumulating the dew which falls at night even 

 in the driest weather. At nightfall they fold together and hang down-- 

 ward (as in the better-known case of the " sensitive plant "), gradually" 

 discharging the accumulated moisture from each leaf -point, sometimes- 



