BOTANY 
209 
in his declaration that he has seen no flowers, must be very careful not to look 
too closely into the details of the landscape or he will falsify his own statement ; 
for in the marshes there are blue or white water-lilies; amongst the high reeds 
on the forested banks of the rivers trailing convolvuluses seem to be always in 
bloom. The white plumes of the reeds and the efflorescence of many rushes 
are often beautiful and form a pleasant feature of the landscape. 
But if these low-lying lands are visited in the spring-time the display of 
flowers is quite as gorgeous 
as elsewhere. The acacia 
trees are loaded with small 
orange-coloured blossoms; 
a creeper (which some¬ 
times grows indepen¬ 
dently as a bush) has all 
along the under part of 
the stalk a continuous 
mass of small crimson 
petalless flowers. When 
these are fully out and 
the branches are twined 
round some smaller tree 
or trailing on the ground 
they are like great wreaths 
of crimson. A strange leaf¬ 
less shrub which resem¬ 
bles a miniature baobab 
tree, has large blossoms 
that are rose-coloured and 
white ; every moist glade 
teems with Crinum lilies 
of the purest white, or 
else white with a line of 
pink (the scent of their 
flowers being almost in¬ 
toxicating when in close 
proximity) ; the india- 
rubber vines have sweet- 
scented, chaste white 
blossoms; there are shrubs 
allied to the jasmine with flowers like those of that plant; the Pterocarpus 
trees for one fortnight in the spring are loaded with immense masses of yellow 
laburnum-like blossom. Other papilionaceous trees of the genus Lonchocarpus 
flower profusely and resemble the Wistaria in colour and appearance; the 
Gardenia tree has, as the reader will see by the illustration, large handsome 
white flowers which in the centre are touched with pink and orange ; then 
there are the various species of Erythrina. One of these, at least, has blossoms 
so gorgeous that I should like to get it introduced into cultivation. The 
tree belongs to the bean family; the flowers which grow in large clusters 
are vivid crimson-scarlet. It usually has but few leaves on it when it bursts 
•into bloom. Suddenly meeting with it in the jungle—great crimson splodges 
radiating from the gnarled grey trunk—you rub your eyes thinking that it must 
H 
AN ANGR/ECUM ORCHIS 
