44 NOTES OF A BOTANIST . chap. 
several trees and twiners, and the colours are 
gayest and most varied in the months of July 
and August. Then are scattered over the plain, 
especially where the soil is sandy, dense posies of 
the " Purple flower," a species of Physocalymma 
(Lythraceae), and the less conspicuous ones of the 
Yellow flower" (Vochysia sp.) ; more sparingly is 
seen mixed with these a larger mass of the orange 
flowers of Vochysia ferruginea, and these are every- 
where set off by white bunches of Myrtles and 
Melastomas. Near the Shillicaio rise here and 
there magnificent trees of Ama-sisa ( Erythrina 
amasisa, Sp.), which have been spared by the axe 
of the first settlers — some of them as much as 
80 or 100 feet high, and twice in the year, at 
intervals of six months, clad with large flame- 
coloured or vermilion flowers, sometimes with no 
accompaniment of leaves and sometimes with 
young leaves of a most delicate green just 
appearing. I have been delighted to walk by the 
Shillicaio at sunset and observe the tracery of the 
crown of the Ama-sisa, with its copious red tassels, 
projected on the pale blue eastern sky, when the 
flowers of almost every tree showed a different 
shade of yellow-red, not, however, paling to yellow 
on the one hand or deepening to scarlet on the 
other. It continues in flower nearly two months, 
and before it has well done flowering the ripened 
follicular pods splitting up on one side only, and 
with the two or three seeds still adhering, begin to 
strew the ground. The trunk is more or less closely 
beset with shortly conical, sharply cusped prickles.^ 
^ On this account it is constantly selected by the sagacious troopial {Cassicus 
ideronotus) for its long pensile nests ; though, as if doubting that this were 
