290 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. 
CHAP. XI. 
wisdom and goodness, greatly increased our enjoyment of the 
scenery. 
After proceeding about a couple of hours, and passing 
Marovata and Batrasina, two villages on our right, standing- 
on mounds of sandstone, and the straggling village of Maro- 
mandia, stretching along the top of the high land on our left, 
we left the broad river, and entered a narrow creek between high 
banks of clay. Several birds here attracted my notice, among 
them a pretty little purple-coloured kingfisher. But my 
attention was chiefly arrested by the flowers on the banks of 
the narrow stream, amongst them a plant which looked like 
a variety of herbaceous hibiscus, with bright yellow flowers, 
and gigantic arum, A. costatum , or A. colocasia , which grew 
by the edge of the water to the height of ten or twelve feet, 
and so near that I could reach them on both sides as we 
passed along. 
But the most magnificent objects were the fine trees of 
Astrajpcea Wallichii, or viscosa. The name of this Malagasy 
plant was derived from the word for lightning, on account of 
the brilliancy of its flowers; and Sir Joseph Paxton and 
Dr. Lindley have thus spoken of A. Wallichii: — “ One of 
the finest plants ever introduced. And when loaded with its 
magnificent flowers, we think nothing can exceed its gran¬ 
deur.”* I had seen a good sized plant growing freely at 
Mauritius, but here it was in its native home, luxuriating on 
the banks of the stream, its trunk a foot in diameter, its 
broad leaved branches stretching over the water, and its large, 
pink, globular, composite flowers, three or four inches in 
diameter, suspended at the end of a fine down-covered stalk, 
nine inches or a foot in length. These hanging by hundreds 
along the course of the stream, surpassed anything of the 
kind I had seen, or could possibly have imagined. I 
Paxton’s Botanical Dictionary, p. 33. 
