BEAUTIFUL GROVES. 
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foliage, and much variety of light and shadow. The 
under growth, however, is no less pleasing. The 
lively tender green of the Plantains and Bananas 
planted in regular avenues, the light tracery of the 
Yams, the Cho-chos, the Melons and Gourds, the 
numerous sorts of Peas, and other climbers, among 
which several species of Passion-flower throw their 
elegant foliage, magnificent blossoms, and grateful 
acid fruits over the branches of the trees, — the 
delicate forms of the Castor-oil tree and the Cassavas ; 
the noble flower of the esculent Hibiscus or Okra — 
these are the ordinary, almost I might say universal, 
features of a Jamaican negro-garden ; and when I add 
to these fine Convolvuli and Ipomeae of rainbow hues, 
the pride of our conservatories, and large white and 
yellow species of Echites, that, altogether unsought, 
trail in wild luxuriance about the fences, — I shall 
be justified in pronouncing the scene one of more 
than common loveliness, even in the grandeur and 
beauty of a tropical land. 
THE COCOA-NUT PALM. 
A grove of Cocoa-nut Palms is a very interesting 
scene to an European. The radiating tuft of fronds 
which surmounts the tall stem like a crown, is so un- 
like any other object, that even a single Cocoa-nut 
tree stands out conspicuously from the surrounding 
vegetation, (on a hill side for example, where it is 
backed by the common forest,) so as to catch the 
eye at a great distance. There is such a grove behind 
Bluefields, halfway up the dark mountain. It is 
