1016 Marvels of the Universe 
the ground of nearly thirty feet. Yet the structure of their flowers shows them to be true Lobelias 
and nearly related to the dwarf species, which is not only one of the most common plants in cultivated 
gardens, but as a wild flower produces gorgeous effects on South and Central African mountains, 
where it grows in veritable carpets of ultramarine or azure blue. 
When the great German explorer, Baron von der Decken, made a minute examination of the 
slopes of Kilimanjaro in Eastern Equatorial Africa, though he did not succeed in reaching the snow- 
line, he attained to altitudes where an Alpine vegetation grew, and here he observed the giant 
Lobelias which were subsequently named after him. Later, the present writer, visiting the same 
regions, likewise collected the flowers and leaves of these monstrous Lobelias. But this plant 
was—to his thinking—a far more striking and noteworthy object on the Ruwenzori Mountains, 
almost in the heart of Africa. Here they grew 
at an altitude of between ten thousand and 
thirteen thousand feet, with the appearance 
shown in the accompanying photographs—a 
tall column, the upper part of which consisted 
mainly of shining, scaly bracts, directed down- 
wards, while the lower part was of stiff dark- 
green leaves directed upwards. Under each of 
these scaly bracts of light-green was a large 
flower of intense ultramarine blue. When the 
sun grew strong in the daytime and the flowers 
were ripe, the bracts rose till they were hori- 
zontal in position and thus revealed beautiful 
blue flowers below, which were at once visited 
by numerous bees. 
There are other giant Lobelias on these 
same Snow Mountains of Eastern Equatorial 
Africa, as, for example, Stuhlmann’s Lobelia, 
the flowers of which are a pale reddish-green, 
and also grow in tall columns concealed by green 
bracts. This, or an allied species, would develop 
a bare trunk devoid of leaves but crowned by 
a great tuft of spear-shaped foliage, finally 
surmounted by the slender column of bracts and 
By permission of] [Sir H. H. Johnston. flowers, so that they looked very much like a 
ON IRONVENZORIL draceena or tree-lily. 
ee ion dae Dectos [stain ts aah a mera 
feature. of vegetation, and at certain times so beautiful, 
that it is surprising efforts have not already been made to introduce it into European gardens, 
where it ought to stand the climate well, as it must be accustomed to occasional frosts and cold, 
wet weather. 
WINTER WHITENING 
INC Wife ID, WNAORVAIPIN, 1548p IBCs 
Way is it that beasts and birds which have to face a prolonged and severe winter turn white as the 
snow which surrounds them? This is a question more easily asked than answered. But all the 
evidence seems to favour the Darwinian interpretation, which is summed up in the two words 
“natural selection.” And herein we have a perfectly wonderful illustration of the way in which 
