Chapter X: Peacock-Shooting, 326 (11)

Some of the genus _Haetera_, (as _H. piera_, and _H. esmeralda_,) and many of the _Heliconiadae_, as _Hymenitis diaphana_, &c., have the wings nearly or quite destitute of the ordinary scaly clothing, presenting only a transparent membrane of great delicacy; over which the light plays with a beautiful iridescence. _Papilio Arcturus_ and some allied species, are of a golden-green, changing to blue, or to glowing purple. Very many of the _Nymphalidae_ are distinguished for a flush of surpassing richness, that in one particular light gleams over the surface. Our own _Apatura Iris_, commonly known as the purple emperor, is a native example of this beauty, and still more _A. namoura_; but especially the species of the genus _Thaumantis_, as well as _Morpho Martia_, and _M. Automedon_. _Diadema bolina_ also displays a purple flush over and around the white spots, which is exquisitely beautiful. In general this glow is found only in the male, but in the lovely _Epiphile chrysitis_ it is common to the female.

In _Colias Electra_ a warm purple glow plays over the surface in a strong light, which is the more singularly beautiful, because the permanent colour which is thus suffused is a rich golden orange. There is, however, a species (_C. Lesbia_) of which only a single specimen is known, and that is in fragments, in the Banksian Collection, which is in this respect vastly superior to the former. In all these cases, the playing gleam is more or less empurpled; in _Paphia Portia_, however, it may be called crimson.

But still more exquisitely beautiful than any of these is the fine opalescence that irradiates some butterflies in the changing beam. There is a white butterfly from Senegal (_Anthocharis Ione_) allied to our common garden whites, marked at the tips of the wings with a spot of violet, surrounded by black. In a certain aspect, there plays over this spot a violet opalescence of exceeding richness. And to mention no more, (for, indeed, we know not that we could mention anything to surpass this,) the carnation spots on the black wings of _Papilio Anchises_, _P. AEneas_, _P. Tullus_, &c., are at intervals flushed with a violet opalescence, so brilliant, that we know no other object to compare with it.

In contemplating such objects, we cannot help concurring in the sentiments expressed by the pious Ray:--"Quaeri fortasse a nonnullis potest, quis Papilionum usus sit? Respondeo, Ad ornatum universi, et ut hominibus spectaculo sint: ad rura illustranda velut tot bracteae inservientes. Quis enim eximiam earum pulchritudinem et varietatem contemplans mira voluptate non afficiatur? Quis tot colorum et schematum elegantias naturae ipsius ingenio excogitatas et artifici penicillo depictas curiosis oculis intuens, divinae artis vestigia eis impressa non agnoscat et miretur?" And I may add, since such exquisite traces of loveliness remain in a world which Satan has spoiled and sin defiled, what must have been its glory when He who made it could take complacency in beholding it, and in the minutest details could pronounce it "very good!"

The Rev. James Smith of Monquhitter thus alludes to the exquisite beauty of some South American butterflies. One or two of the species I have already alluded to, but even these can yield additional themes of admiration. "I hold," he says, "that there are hues and shades of colour which are positively beautiful in themselves, and independently of all associations whatever; and to look upon which merely as patches of colour, affords a gratification of no mean description. And for the truth of such an opinion, I know not where I should obtain a stronger and a more pleasing proof, than from the _Lepidoptera_ to which I have alluded. The patch, for instance, which is on the posterior wings of the _Haetera Esmeralda_, and which may be characterised as a compound of carmine and of the deepest blue dotted with two spots of vermilion, will in itself, and irrespectively of association, communicate a pleasure to every eye which looks upon it. The band of silver blue on the wing of a large _Morpho_; the deep tone, to speak in pictorial phrase, of the black in the _Papilio Sesostris_, finer even than the finest velvet of Genoa; the rich dark orange on _Epicilia Ancaea_; the blue, shining in one unnamed species like polished steel, in another (_Thecla_) with a radiant clearness, which ultramarine itself could not surpass; the satin-like golden green, the pearly lustrous white, and the deep shining emerald ribbons in _Urania Boisduvalii_; the crimson lines and spots deeper and clearer than blood, in a species to which no name is attached, of _Papilio_; the small spangles of silver with which the under surface of one of the least among them (_Cupido_) is, as it were, incrusted; the iridescent and delicate violet with which, on the same surface, a particular species of _Haetera_ is, so to speak, washed over, in a way which calls to our remembrance the 'scumbling' given by Rembrandt as the finishing touch to his finest productions; all these, and many more, possess a beauty which I contend, in opposition to the doctrine of Alison and Jeffrey, is absolute in itself; which is altogether irrespective of association; and which the most skilful of human pencils would find it impossible completely and properly to copy."[214]

I must apologise to fair readers for alluding to Spiders--"nasty spiders!"--in a chapter on beauty; but prejudice must not make us shut our eyes to glories even among these. In the tropical species there is often metallic splendour and brilliance of colour. In my "Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica," my friend Mr Hill has written some very interesting observations on the web of a certain Spider, and on the relations of its structure with that of the Spider itself; but I allude to it now because of the elegance of the creature, the _Epeira argentata_ of Fabricius. The upper surface of the body is of a glistening satiny or silvery whiteness, the belly yellow, spotted with black, and the legs marked with alternate rings of the same contrasted hues.

In the same island I was familiar with another species, (_Nephila clavipes_,) remarkable for the length and strength of its silken cords. The body, which is lengthened, is studded with round white spots, each encircled with a black border, on a rich greenish brown ground, reminding one of the characteristic markings of the Tragopans among birds. The cephalothorax is shining black, its lustre half concealed by a clothing of short silvery down: the legs are very long, and have a remarkably elegant appearance from having a bunch of black hair set around the extremity of the first and second joints, like the bristles of a bottle-brush.

I fortify my own verdict with the observations of a brother naturalist on the Spiders of Borneo, presuming that those which he alludes to appear to belong to the genus _Gastracantha_, of which I have seen species in Jamaica.

"The spiders, so disgusting in appearance in many other countries, are here of quite a different nature, and are the most beautiful of the insect tribe; they have a skin of a shell-like texture, furnished with curious processes, in some long, in others short, in some few, in others numerous; but are found, of this description, only in thick woods and shaded places: their colours are of every hue, brilliant and metallic as the feathers of the humming-bird, but are, unlike the bright colours of the beetle, totally dependent on the life of the insect which they beautify, so that it is impossible to preserve them."[215]

It is possible that this beauty might be less evanescent if the animals were preserved in spirit or other antiseptic fluid. A writer in the _Zoologist_ (p. 5929) mentions the fact that the iridescence of certain beetles (_Cassida_) which is peculiarly splendid and metallic, and which disappears immediately on the insects' becoming dry, is perpetuated in its original loveliness when the specimens are preserved in spirit, even after the lapse of several years.

The tropical species of this genus are far finer and richer than our little English kinds, though these are pretty. I was much delighted by the brilliance of some of the Jamaican species, and Sir Emerson Tennent thus speaks of them in Ceylon:--

"There is one family of insects, the members of which cannot fail to strike the traveller by their singular beauty, the _Cassidadae_, or tortoise beetles, in which the outer shell overlaps the body, and the limbs are susceptible of being drawn entirely within it. The rim is frequently of a different tint from the centre, and one species which I have seen is quite startling from the brilliancy of its colouring, which gives it the appearance of a ruby inclosed in a frame of pearl; but this wonderful effect disappears immediately on the death of the insect."[216]

If we turn to the vegetable world, what a profusion of beauty do we find! Exquisite are the tiny Mosses, when the fogs and rains of winter, so inimical to other vegetation, have quickened them into verdure and fruit. How they spread along the hedgerow banks in soft fleeces of vivid emerald, and shoot up their slender stalks, each crowned with its tiny urn, and wearing its fairy nightcap! Beautiful are the tiny dark-green feather-like leaves of the Forkmoss crowded on the clayey bank; beautiful the wild sprays of the plumy Hypnum; and beautiful the little round velvet cushions of Tortula, that grow on every old wall-top.

"The tiny moss, whose silken verdure clothes
The time-worn rock, and whose bright capsules rise,
Like fairy urns, on stalks of golden sheen,
Demand our admiration and our praise,
As much as cedar kissing the blue sky
Or Krubul's giant-flower. God made them all,
And what _He_ deigns to make should ne'er be deem'd
Unworthy of our study."

Exquisite too are the Ferns, in their arching fronds, so richly cut in elegant tracery. See a fine crown of the Lady Fern in a shaded Devonshire lane, and confess that grace and beauty are triumphant there. And in the saturated atmosphere of the tropical islands, where these lovely plants form a very large proportion of the entire vegetation, and some of them rise on slender stems thirty or forty feet in altitude, from the summit of which the wide-spreading fronds arch gracefully on every side, like a vast umbrella of twinkling verdure, through whose filagree work the sunbeams are sparkling,--what can be more charming than Ferns?

The queenly Palms, too, are models of stately beauty. Linnaeus called them _vegetabilium principes_; and, when we see them in some noble conservatory of adequate dimensions, such as the glass palm-house at Kew, crowded side by side, with their crowned heads, and lofty stature, and proud, erect bearing, we are involuntarily reminded of the monarchs of many kingdoms met in august conclave.

"Lo! higher still the stately palm-trees rise,
Chequering the clouds with their unbending stems,
And o'er the clouds, amid the dark-blue skies,
Lifting their rich unfading diadems.
How calm and placidly they rest
Upon the heaven's indulgent breast,
As if their branches never breeze had known!
Light bathes them aye in glancing showers,
And Silence, 'mid their lofty bowers,
Sits on her moveless throne."

Are the Grasses worthy of mention for their beauty? Surely, yes. Many of them display a downy lightness exquisitely lovely, as the common Feather-grass. The golden panicles of the great Quake-grass, so curiously compacted and hanging in stalks of so hair-like a tenuity as to nod and tremble with the slightest motion, how beautiful are these! And the satiny plumes of the Pampas-grass projecting from the clump of leaves form a fine object. But the Bamboos, those great arborescent Grasses of the tropics, form a characteristic feature of the vegetation of those regions, of almost unexampled magnificence. I have seen them in their glory, and can sympathise with the philosophical Humboldt in the powerful effect which the grandeur of the Bamboo produces on the poetic mind. It is an object never to be forgotten, especially when growing in those isolated clumps, that look like tufts of ostrich-plumes magnified to colossal dimensions. A thousand of these noble reeds standing in close array, each four or five inches in the diameter of its stem, and rising in erect dignity to the height of forty feet, and all waving their tufted summits in diverging curves moved by every breeze,--form, indeed, a magnificent spectacle. Growing in the most rocky situations, the Bamboo is frequently planted in Jamaica on the very apex of those conical hills which form so remarkable a feature in the landscape of the interior, and to which its noble tufts constitute a most becoming crown.

Mr Ellis thus describes the elegance of these magnificent Grasses in Madagascar:--

"The base of the hills and the valleys were covered with the Bamboo, which was far more abundant than during any former part of the journey. There were at least four distinct varieties: one a large growing kind, erect nearly to the point; a second smaller, seldom rising much above twenty feet in height, bushy at the base, and gracefully bending down its tapering point. A third kind rose in single cane, almost without a leaf, to the height of thirty feet or more; or, bending over, formed a perfectly circular arch. I also saw a Bamboo growing as a creeper, with small short joints, feathered with slender leafy branches at every joint, and stretching in festoons from tree to tree along the side of the road, or hanging suspended in single lines from a projecting branch, and swinging gently with the passing breeze. The appearance of the Bamboo when growing is exceedingly graceful. Sometimes the canes, as thick as a man's arm at the base, rise forty or fifty feet high, fringed at the joints, which are two or three feet apart, with short branches of long, lance-shaped leaves. The smaller kinds, which abound most in this region, are still more elegant; and the waving of the canes, with their attenuated but feathery-looking points, bending down like a plume, and the tremulous quivering, even in the slightest breeze, of their long, slender leaves, present ever-varying aspects of beauty; and, combined with the bright-green colour of the Bamboo-cane and leaf, impart an indescribable charm to the entire landscape."[217]

Glorious in loveliness are the _Musaceae_, the Plantains and Bananas of the hot regions. Humboldt calls the Banana "one of the noblest and most lovely of vegetable productions;" and truly its enormous, flag-like leaves of the richest green, permeated by nervures running transversely in exactly parallel lines, and arching out in every direction from the succulent, spongy, sheathed stem, command our admiration, apart from the beauty of their flowers, or the importance of their fruit.

In a description of a mountain scene in Tahiti, drawn with graphic power by Charles Darwin, the Banana forms a prominent element:--"I could not look on the surrounding plants without admiration. On every side were forests of Banana; the fruit of which, though serving for food in various ways, lay in heaps decaying on the ground.... As the evening drew to a close, I strolled beneath the gloomy shade of the Bananas up the course of the stream. My walk was soon brought to a close, by coming to a waterfall between two and three hundred feet high; and again above this there was another.... In the little recess where the water fell, it did not appear that a breath of wind had ever blown. The thin edges of the great leaves of the Banana, damp with spray, were unbroken, instead of being, as is so generally the case, split into a thousand shreds. From our position, almost suspended on the mountain-side, there were glimpses into the depths of the neighbouring valleys: and the lofty points of the central mountains, towering up within sixty degrees of the zenith, hid half the evening sky. Thus seated, it was a sublime spectacle to watch the shades of night gradually obscuring the last and highest pinnacles."[218]

This scene must have been one of surpassing sublimity and loveliness. Few doubtless have ever beheld anything that can be compared with it. But perhaps many have felt--I have, often,--that there are occasions in which the sense of the beautiful in nature becomes almost painfully overpowering. I have gazed on some very lovely prospects, bathed perhaps in the last rays of the evening sun, till my soul seemed to struggle with a very peculiar undefinable sensation, as if longing for a power to enjoy, which I was conscious I did not possess, and which found relief only in tears. I have felt conscious that there were elements of enjoyment and admiration there, which went far beyond my capacity of enjoying and admiring; and I have delighted to believe, that, by and by, when, in the millennial kingdom of Jesus, and, still more, in the remoter future, in the dispensation of the fulness of times, the earth--the "_new_ earth,"--shall be endowed with a more than paradisaical glory, there will be given to redeemed man a greatly increased power and capacity for drinking in, and enjoying the augmented loveliness. Doubtless the risen and glorified saints, sitting with the King of kings upon His throne, will have the senses of their spiritual bodies expanded in capacity beyond what we can now form the slightest conception of; and as all then will be enjoyment of the most exquisite kind, and absolutely unalloyed by interruption or satiety,--the eye will at length be satisfied with seeing, and the ear be satisfied with hearing. "_I shall be satisfied_, when I awake up with thy likeness."

It is in _Flowers_ that the beauty of the vegetable world chiefly resides; and I shall now therefore select a few examples from the profusion of lovely objects which the domain proper of Flora presents to us.

That very curious tribe of plants, the _Orchideae_, so remarkable for the mimic forms of other things, that its blossoms delight to assume, is also pre-eminent in gorgeous beauty. Take the _Sobraliae_,--terrestrial species from Central America, where they form extensive thickets, growing thrice the height of man, with slender nodding stems, and alternate willow-like leaves, and terminal racemes loaded with snow-white, pink, crimson, or violet flowers.[219] Imagine the crushing through "thickets" of the lovely _S. macrantha_! The large lily-like blossoms of this species are eight inches long, and as many wide, of the richest purple crimson, and of the most elegant shape conceivable, with the lip so wrapped round the column as to appear funnel-shaped, bordered by an exquisitely-cut fringe.

I have before alluded to _Phajus Tankervilliae_, that rich lily-like spike of blossom which I stumbled on in the midst of a dense thicket in the mountains of Jamaica. Another terrestrial genus of great elegance is _Cypripedium_, of which we have one native species, _C. calceolus_, the yellow lady's slipper,--one of the most charming, but the rarest and most difficult of propagation, of British plants. But this is far excelled in beauty by many of the exotic species; as, for example, the exquisite _C. barbatum_ from Malacca. The very foliage is princely; for the nervures and cross-veins form a network pattern of dark green upon the light green area of each broad leaf. The blossom rears up its noble head erect, with its standard-petal of white, striped with green and purple, the wing-petals studded with purple tubercles along their edges, and the lip or slipper-shaped petal of a dark purple hue.

My readers may have occasionally noticed a little plant, in the most recherchees stove-houses, of so much delicacy and preciousness that it is invariably kept under a bell-glass. I mean the _Anaectochilus setaceus_. It belongs to this tribe, and is a terrestrial species, growing about the roots of the trees in the humid forests of Ceylon. Its exquisite loveliness has attracted the attention of even the apathetic Cingalese, who call it by the poetical epithet of _Wanna Raja_, or king of the forest. It does not appear to possess any peculiar attractiveness in its blossoms,--indeed, I have never seen it in flower; but its leaves, which grow in opposite pairs, are elegantly heart-shaped, of a deep rich greenish-brown hue, approaching to black, of a surface which resembles velvet, reticulated all over with pale golden veins, which, being numerous and minute, have a very charming appearance, somewhat like the pale network on black patches which we see in the wings of some dragon-flies.

The epiphyte Orchids are also magnificent in beauty. One of the handsomest genera is _Dendrobium_, containing many species, mostly natives of Southern Asia and the great islands. Perhaps the finest of all is _D. nobile_, of which the sepals and petals are greenish-white, tipped with rich purple, and the downy tube-like lip is of the same regal hue in the interior, with a pale yellow margin.

By the side of this you may set the lovely _Huntleya violacea_, one of the discoveries of Sir R. Schomburgk in the interior of Guiana. Its broad wavy petals of the softest richest violet, "vary in intensity from deepest sapphire to the mild iridescence of opal." This fine flower has a melancholy interest from its being associated with the death of Sir Robert's friend and fellow-servant, Mr Reiss. The gorgeous scenes of tropical vegetation in which the plant was found, and the sad accident, are thus depicted by the accomplished traveller:--

"I discovered the _Huntleya violacea_ for the first time in October 1837, then on my ascent of the river Essequibo. The large cataract, Cumaka Toto, or Silk Cotton Fall, obliged us to unload our corials, and to transport the luggage overland, in order to avoid the dangers which a mass of water, at once so powerful and rapid, and bounded by numerous rocks, might offer to our ascent. While the Indians were thus occupied, I rambled about one of the small islands, which the diverging arms of the river formed in their descent, and the vegetation of which had that peculiar lively appearance which is so characteristic of the vicinity of cataracts, where a humid cloud, the effects of the spray, always hovers around them. Blocks of syenite were heaped together; and while their black shining surface contrasted strongly with the whitish foam of the torrent, and with the curly waves beating against the rocky barriers--as if angry at the boundary which they attempted to set to the incensed element--their dome-shaped summits were adorned with a vegetation at once rich and interesting. _Heliconias_, _Tillandsias_, _Bromelias_, _Ferns_, _Pothos_, _Cyrtopodiums_, _Epidendrums_, _Peperomias_, all appeared to struggle for the place which so small a surface afforded to them. The lofty mountains, Akaywanna, Comute, or Taquia, and Tuasinki, recede and form an amphitheatre, affording a highly interesting scene, and no doubt the most picturesque of that part of the river Essequibo.

"I was attracted by a number of _Oncidium altissimum_ which covered one of the rocky piles, and astonished me by their long stems and bright colour of their flowers, when my attention was more powerfully attracted by a plant, the appearance of which, although different from the pseudo-bulbous tribe, proclaimed, nevertheless, that it belonged to that interesting family, the _Orchideae_. The specimens were numerous; and clothed almost, with their vivid green, the rugged and dark trunks of the gigantic trees, which contributed to the majestic scene around me. It was not long before I discovered one of these plants in flower. It was as singular as it was new to me;--the sepals and petals of a rich purple and velvet-like appearance; the helmet, to which form the column bore the nearest resemblance, of the same colour; the labellum striated with yellow.

"In the sequel of my expeditions, I found it generally in the vicinity of cataracts, where a humid vapour is constantly suspended, and where the rays of the sun are scarcely admitted through a thick canopy of foliage. I traced the _Huntleya_ from the sixth parallel of latitude to the shady mountains of the Acaria chain near the equator; but in its fullest splendour it appeared at one of the small islands among the Christmas cataracts in the river Berbice. There is a melancholy circumstance connected with the plant, which its appearance never fails to recall to my memory. Their singular beauty at this spot induced my friend, Mr Reiss, who accompanied me as a volunteer during the unfortunate expedition up the river Berbice, to draw and paint it on the spot. He was yet occupied with this task when the last of our canoes was to descend the dangerous cataract. He arose from his occupation, desirous to descend with the Indians in the canoe, although against my wish, but he persisted. The canoe approached the fall; it upset; and, of thirteen persons who were in it at the time, he was the only one who paid the rash attempt with his life. He is now buried opposite that island, the richest vegetable productions of which it was his last occupation to imitate on paper and in colours."[220]

We might linger long on these flowers of strange loveliness, but space compels us to forsake them and to turn to some other examples in the wide range of Flora's domains. How glorious a sight must be the sheeted Rhododendrons of the Himalaya peaks, on whose lofty elevations Dr Hooker found these fine plants in great prominence, "clothing the mountain-slopes with a deep-green mantle, glowing with bells of brilliant colours; of the eight or ten species growing here, [on the Zemir, in Sikkim, twelve thousand feet above the sea,] every bush was loaded with as great a profusion of blossoms as are their northern congeners in our English gardens!"[221]

The noblest of the genus is that which is dedicated to Lady Dalhousie. It is an epiphyte, being always found growing, like the Orchids, among mosses and ferns, upon the trunks of large trees, especially oaks and magnolias, at an elevation of from seven to ten thousand feet. In this particular, in the fragrance of its noble white blossoms, in its slender habit, in the whorled arrangement of its branches, and in the length of time during which it continues in flower in its native regions, viz., from April to July, it differs from all its fellows of the same genus that inhabit northern India.

The flowers are four inches in length and four in diameter, with a broad trumpet lip. Their colour is pure white, assuming a delicate rosy tinge as they become old, and sometimes becoming spotted with orange. They have an odour which resembles that of the lemon.

Of this and the following species Dr Hooker writes from Dorjiling, seven thousand feet above the sea:--"On the branches of the immense purple-flowered magnolia, (_M. Campbellii_,) and those of oaks and laurels, _Rhododendron Dalhousiae_ grows epiphytally, a slender shrub bearing from three to six white lemon-scented bells, four and a half inches long and so many broad, at the end of each branch. In the same woods the scarlet Rhododendron (_R. arboreum_) is very scarce, and is outvied by the great _R. argenteum_, which grows as a tree, forty feet high, with magnificent leaves twelve to fifteen inches long, deep green wrinkled above and silvery below, while the flowers are as large as those of _R. Dalhousiae_ and grow more in a cluster. I know nothing of the kind that exceeds in beauty the flowering branch of _R. argenteum_, with its wide-spreading foliage and glorious mass of flowers."[222]

The latter, which is nearly equal to _R. Dalhousiae_ in the size of its blossoms, and perhaps superior to it in other respects, is another white-flowered species. It is, as described above, a tree with large massive leaves of a silvery tint beneath. When young, they are exquisitely beautiful, being encased in long flesh-coloured cones of large scales, of very ornamental appearance. The flowers are three inches long, forming a compact globose head.

They secrete a large quantity of honey, which is said to be poisonous, as is also that of _R. Dalhousiae_.

The grandeur and beauty of the same genus are celebrated by Mr Low, as he saw the species growing in Borneo, where too their parasitic character struck him, as it had done Dr Hooker:--

"Perhaps the most gorgeous of the native plants are the various species of the genus _Rhododendron_, which here assume a peculiar form, being found epiphytal upon the trunks of trees, as the genera of the tribe _Orchidace{oe}_. This habit, induced probably by the excessive moisture of the climate, is not, however, confined to the Ericaceous plants, but also prevails with the genera _Fagria_, _Combretum_, and many others, usually terrestrial; the roots of the Rhododendrons, instead of being, as with the species [which are] inhabitants of cold climates, small and fibrous, become large and fleshy, winding round the trunks of the forest trees; the most beautiful one is that which I have named in compliment to Mr Brooke. Its large heads of flowers are produced in the greatest abundance throughout the year: they much exceed in size those of any known species, frequently being formed of eighteen flowers, which are of all shades, from pale and rich yellow to a rich reddish salmon-colour; in the sun, the flowers sparkle with a brilliancy resembling that of gold dust.

"Four other species which I discovered are very gorgeous, but of different colours, one being crimson and another red, and the third a rich tint between these two: of the fourth I have not yet seen the flowers."[223]

Take an example from another order. The Lightning-tree of Madagascar rises before us in the graphic pages of Mr Ellis:--

"But the most magnificent objects were the fine trees of _Astrapaea 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 grandeur.' 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[224] 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 frequently met with the _Astrapaea_ afterwards, but always growing near the water, and its branches frequently stretching over a lake or river."[225]

The Leguminous or Papilionaceous order presents many plants of striking beauty, both in foliage, which is often of extreme lightness and elegance, and also in blossom. They are among the gayest and most graceful of plants in all regions. The magnificent vegetation of the Mauritius contains one of notable glory, the Flamboyant, thus noticed by Ellis:--

"Conspicuous beyond all the rest is the stately and gorgeous _Poinciana regia_, compact-growing and regular in form, but retaining something of the acacia habit, rising sometimes to the height of forty or fifty feet, and, between the months of December and April, presenting, amidst its delicate pea-green pinnated leaves, one vast pyramid of bunches of bright, dazzling scarlet flowers. Seen sometimes over the tops of the houses, and at others in an open space, standing forth in truly regal splendour, this is certainly one of the most magnificent of trees. Its common name is _mille fleurs_, or _flamboyant_."[226]

I have had the delight of seeing the _Poinciana pulcherrima_ in Jamaica, where it goes by the name of Flower-feuce, or sometimes, the "Pride of Barbadoes." It is, when in flower, a gorgeous mass of scarlet and orange, and it seemed to me the most magnificent thing in its way, that I had ever seen. It does not, however, attain the dimensions of its antipode, rarely exceeding those of a large shrub.

I know not what the Burmese tree is, which is alluded to in the following extracts from letters which I have received from my esteemed friend, Captain G. E. Bulger, of the 10th Regiment:--

"I shall be exceedingly obliged by your telling me whether you are familiar with the tree known in the West Indies and South America as the 'Bois Immortel;' and whether you think the leaf herewith sent belongs to it.

"During the cool season in Burmah, the forest presents a gorgeous sight, from the multitude of scarlet blossoms which a large kind of tree puts forth; and I am strongly inclined to think that this splendid ornament of the jungles is, at all events, allied to the Bois Immortel of the Western World.

"The tree I speak of begins to flower about the middle of December, at which time the leaves commence to wither and drop off. By the end of January, when it is in full bloom, there is hardly a leaf remaining, but it continues one mass of scarlet blossom until March. The flower is shaped like that of the pea.

"If you can enlighten me on this point I shall be indeed very much obliged."

I was compelled to confess my ignorance even of the South American beauty, and my friend thus replied:--

"I first read of the 'Bois Immortel' in 'Waterton's Wanderings,' and I subsequently saw a coloured representation of the tree in Mr Gould's magnificent work on Humming-Birds. I think the specific name was also given in that work, but it is some time ago, and I have almost forgotten what it was like. Since I saw these two works, I have heard officers speak of the splendour of the South American forests during the season of 'Le Bois Immortel,' and have heard more than one say that they believed nothing on earth could be more magnificent than 'matchless Trinidad' when these trees are in full bloom. The autumnal beauty of the North American woods is, doubtless, familiar to you, and I question very much whether there is anything richer or more lovely to be found even in South America."

Even the humblest orders of plants have the element of beauty bestowed on them with no niggard hand. Who would have expected, among the _Chenopodeae_, and, above all, in the lowly little Saltworts, to find such a glowing scene as Mr Atkinson describes?--

"We were now on a heavy sandy steppe--part of the Sackha Desert, which extends into the Gobi--and vegetation was so very scant, that even the steppe grass had disappeared. The _Salsola_ was growing in a broad belt around the small salt lakes, its colour varying from orange to the deepest crimson. These lakes have a most singular appearance when seen at a distance. The sparkling of the crystallised salt, which often reflected the deep crimson around, gave them the appearance of diamonds and rubies set in a gorgeous framework. I rode round several times, admiring their beauty, and regretting that it was impossible to stay and visit a large lake, which I observed, ten or fifteen versts distant, surrounded with green, orange, and crimson."[227]

The microscope, too, will bring out beauties in flowers which the unassisted eye is incompetent fully to recognise. If we take a scarlet Geranium, or a purple Heartsease, the eye is delighted with the brilliancy of the colouring; but on placing a petal of either on a slip of glass, under a pretty high magnifying power, and reflecting the full rays of the sun through the object, the rich gorgeousness of the hue, the sparkling gem-like radiance of the surface, and the exquisitely-regular form of the round cells, with their clear interstices, form a spectacle of glorious beauty that almost surpasses the conception of one who has not seen it.

I shall close this chapter, which might easily have been expanded into a volume, with a reference to an humble and minute plant, whose fairy loveliness, combined with an almost unkillable hardiness of constitution, has won for it a place in every garden, however unpretending, and however ungenial in its locality,--the London-pride. This exquisite little Saxifrage, general favourite as it is, requires the microscope to bring out its beauties to advantage, but under a good instrument you cannot fail to be charmed with it. I have one before me at this moment, and will describe what I see.

First, I notice, on a cursory glance, that the whole plant is clothed with tiny hairs; I take one of the flower-stalks and examine these with a power of three hundred diameters. Each now becomes a stem of glass-like clearness, tapering upwards to a point, where it bears a richly crimson cup, and in this is seated a globule of colourless glass, just as an acorn sits in its shell. The multitude of these organs--glandular hairs, the botanist calls them--standing up side by side, rising to varying heights, and displaying various degrees of development, is a very pleasing sight.

I turn to an unopened bud, putting on a lower power, and viewing it as an opaque object, with reflected light by the aid of the Lieberkuhn. Here are the parting sepals of the calyx, painted with rose-pink and pea-green, and studded all over with the knobbed hairs just noticed; the coloured surface is rough with granules, but it is the roughness of glass, for every knob gleams and sparkles with light. The corolla, a little white ball, displays its petals smoothly folded over each other, and their surface has the same appearance of granular glass as that of the calyx.

But now let me examine this blossom just expanded this morning,--the very first of the season, by the way. I must have a low power for this, eighty diameters, or so. Oh, how exquisite! The little saucer of five oval petals, each of snowy whiteness, bearing its bow of lovely crimson specks, with a spot of gamboge-yellow for the chord, and the whole sparkling with glassy points as before. The pale red germen in the centre, rising into two points of snow, their rosy tips pressed close together, as if the twins were kissing. The ten stamens, five short alternating with five long ones, and each bearing its pretty kidney-shaped anther of pale scarlet. No; all are not kidney-shaped; for here is one which has burst, and the grains of red pollen are seen covering its rough purple surface; and here is one stamen from the point of which the anther has gone, leaving only two or three pollen-grains adhering. Behind all, I see the sepals of the calyx, peeping out between the petals, and forming a fine dark background for them, and for the longer filaments.

And now I say to my readers, one and all,--you may not have the opportunity to examine the glorious tropical Orchids, or the gorgeous Flamboyant, but go and pluck a flower of the London-pride, and you will have before your eyes such a production of Divine handiwork as may well excite the admiration and adoration of an angel.

[203] Rev. v. 11.

[204] Edwards's _Voyage up the Amazon_, 194.

[205] _Travels on the Amazon and Negro_, 222.

[206] _Voy. a la Nouv. Guinee._

[207] _Amer. Ornith._

[208] Edwards's _Voy. up the Amazon_, 143.

[209] _Martial_, xiii. 72.

[210] _Windsor Forest._

[211] See _Good Words_ for April 1861.

[212] _Wordsworth_.

[213] _Wanderings in N. S. Wales_, &c., ii. 43.

[214] _Zool._, 3060.

[215] Low's _Sarawak_, 87.

[216] Tennent's _Ceylon_, i. 250.

[217] Ellis's _Visit to Madagascar_, 313.

[218] _Nat. Voyage_, ch. xviii.

[219] Poeppig.--_Nov. Gen. et Sp._, i. 54.

[220] Lindley's _Sertum Orchid._; pi. xxvi.

[221] _Himal. Journ._, ii. 58.

[222] _Himal. Journals_, i. 126.

[223] Low's _Sarawak_, 65.

[224] The writer by this term doubtless alludes to the panicles or heads _compounded_ of many individual flowers; for the plant does not belong to the order _Compositae_, but to _Byttneriaceae_.

[225] Ellis's _Madagascar_, p. 390.

[226] Ellis's _Visits to Madagascar_, 57.

[227] Atkinson's _Siberia_, 472.

XI.

PARASITES.

Vast as is this round world on which we live, its surface is not nearly large enough for all the living creatures which are ordained to inhabit it. Multitudes of animals do not walk on the ground, or swim in the waters, or fly in the air, but find the scene of their abode on or in the bodies of other animals. Multitudes of plants do not grow out of the soil, but attach themselves to other plants, and draw their sustenance and support thence. Nay, there are parasites upon parasites, and this, according to Hood, in an infinitely descending series.

"Great fleas have little fleas
Upon their backs to bite 'em;
And little fleas have lesser fleas;
And so _ad infinitum_."

Perhaps the poet's imagination ran a little ahead of his science here; but the idea of an _infinite_ succession of parasites, like nests of pill-boxes, is surely a funny one. There is nothing funny, however, in the thought "that even man," who was made in the image of God, "bears about in his vital organs various forms of loathsome creatures, which riot on his fluids, and consume the very substance of his tissues while ensconced where no efforts of his can dislodge them, no application destroy them. So it is; and few physical facts are better calculated to humble man, and stain the pride of his glory, than to feel that he may at any moment be nourishing a horrid tape-worm in his alimentary canal, or that his muscles may be filled with millions of microscopic _trichinae_.

I will not dwell on these; though, if I were writing a book of pure science, there is a wondrous array of facts of the most striking and interesting character, connected with the structure, the metamorphoses, and the habits, of the Entozoic Worms, which I might present to my readers. It is more pleasant to consider other facts, perhaps not less marvellous, which, as they do not come quite so home to our personal feelings, will not excite horror and disgust in our minds.

The _economy_ of creation is remarkable. He who, by His divine manipulation converted five loaves and two small fishes into a hearty meal for five thousand men, besides women and children, and who could, with the same ease have made them a hundred times as much, said, when the meal was over, "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost." And, when He spread the earth with life, though His resources were infinite, He ordained that one object, itself healthfully enjoying life, and fulfilling its own proper ends of being, should be a microcosm, on which another range of life should find its sphere, and on which it should disport, as on an independent world. I have often admired, in the gorgeous tropical forests, what a wilderness of vegetation a single tree supports; what numbers of orchids and wild pines spring out of the forks, what creepers and lianes hang and twine about its branches, what elegant ferns cluster on the horizontal limbs, what snake-like cacti creep from bough to bough, what mosses, and jungermanniae crowd in every crevice, what many-coloured lichens stud the rugged bark! And then animal life is swarming in all this great field of parasitic vegetation. Reptiles and birds, snails and slugs, insects and millepedes, and spiders and worms nestle by thousands in such prolific situations, so that a great old tropical tree, one of the giant figs or cotton-trees, is a very museum in itself.

And in my wanderings along the sea-edge here at home how often have I been amazed at the diverse population, plant and animal, which crowds a single oar-weed, or tangle! The stem fringed with delicate red-weeds, as the minute _Rhodymeniae_, and _Polysyphoniae_, and _Callithamnia_; the tortuous roots studded with Anemones, with _Flustrae_ and _Lepraliae_, and multitudes of other _Polyzoa_, with tiny Polypes of many kinds, with Barnacles and Limpets, and sheltering small Crustacea, and Mites, and Annelids by scores.

Mr Darwin has an interesting passage on this subject, evoked by the profusion of parasitic life on the long sea-weed of Cape Horn (_Macrocystis_). "The number of living creatures" he remarks, "whose existence intimately depends on the Kelp is wonderful. A great volume might be written, describing the inhabitants of one of these beds of sea-weed. Almost all the leaves, excepting those that float on the surface, are so thickly incrusted with corallines as to be of a white colour. We find exquisitely delicate structures, some inhabited by simple hydra-like polypi, others by more organised kinds, and beautiful compound Ascidiae. On the leaves also, various patelliform shells, Trochi, uncovered molluscs, and some bivalves are attached. Innumerable crustacea frequent every part of the plant. On shaking the great entangled roots, a pile of small fish, shells, cuttle-fish, crabs of all orders, sea-eggs, star-fish, beautiful Holuthuriae, Planariae, and crawling nereidous animals of a multitude of forms, all fall out together. Often as I recurred to a branch of the kelp, I never failed to discover animals of new and curious structure. In Chiloe, where the kelp does not thrive very well, the numerous shells, corallines, and crustacea are absent; but there yet remain a few of the Flustraceae, and some compound Ascidiae; the latter, however, are of different species from those in Terra del Fuego: we here see the fucus possessing a wider range than the animals which use it as an abode. I can only compare these great aquatic forests of the southern hemisphere, with the terrestrial ones in the intertropical regions.

"Yet if in any country a forest was destroyed, I do not believe nearly so many species of animals would perish as would here, from the destruction of the kelp. Amidst the leaves of this plant numerous species of fish live, which nowhere else could find food or shelter: with their destruction the many cormorants and other fishing birds, the otters, seals, and porpoises, would soon perish also; and lastly, the Fuegian savage, the miserable lord of this miserable land, would redouble his cannibal feast, decrease in numbers, and perhaps cease to exist."

I have alluded to the epiphytic plants which are so abundant in the tropics, and which add so greatly to the gorgeousness of the forests there. The most remarkable, or, at all events, the best known, of these are the _Orchideae_, to which, as I have already had occasion more than once to speak of them, I shall do little more than refer here. These establish themselves in the forks, upon the greater limbs, and even in the roughnesses of the bark of the trunk, adhering by their long, interlaced roots, which look like knotted whip-cord, and forming their bunches of psuedo-bulbs, whence their succulent, thick, but elegant leaves project,--a great tuft of verdure; and their fantastic flower-scapes wave in the air or droop with their weight of gorgeous bloom. Thus they derive their nourishment from the humid atmosphere alone, being dependent on the friendly tree only for support and elevation. Humidity seems essential to the vigour of these and most other forms of parasitic vegetation. In the deep shady, gloomy forests of Java, which constitute the zone of vegetation around the base of the mountains, these plants abound, where the air is heavy and damp with the vapours that cannot ascend, and where the density of the foliage is almost frightful; where heat, moisture, and a most extraordinarily deep and rich vegetable soil combine to produce wood of a fungus-like softness, and an inconceivable abundance of twining plants and epiphytes. In those forests, more especially where huge fig-trees constitute the principal part of the timber, intermingled with the most tropical forms of vegetation, such as _Sterculiaceae_, _Sapindaceae_, and _Artocarpeae_, tufts of _Orchideae_ attain a vast size and luxuriance, in company with Aroideous and Zinziberaceous plants.[228] In Demerara, Mr Henchman found masses of _Oncidium altissimum_ and _Maxillaria Parkeri_ of wide dimensions, and so densely growing as to defy any attempt at intrusion; and on the Spanish main he saw the _Epidendrum_ known as the "Spread Eagle" clasping enormous trees, and covering them from the top to the bottom.

The fig-trees, which are among the most gigantic of the tropical forest-trees, and which support an immense profusion of epiphytes, are themselves frequently parasitic and epiphyte in their early condition. It is not uncommon in Jamaica to see a network of roots partially embracing the trunk of some great tree, far up its column, and gradually creeping round and downward. I have seen an old wall so covered, presenting a very curious spectacle. The roots of a wide-spreading fig growing out of the summit of the wall, had spread over its perpendicular surface, down to the earth, all in the same plane, clinging to the wall; the chief roots were as thick as a man's leg, but subordinate roots had proceeded from one to another, anastomosing in all directions (if I may use such a term), so as to make a most elaborate network of a multitude of meshes of various angular forms and sizes. These cross-roots were _at each extremity_ united with the larger roots, and looked as if the whole network had been skilfully carved out of one solid plank of wood, by cutting out the areas or meshes, and rounding the component bars; the very bark that covered the whole was continuous, where the roots united, as if they had been always integrally one.

The only mode in which I can account for this singular phenomenon is the following hypothesis:--The seed of the tree was originally deposited on the summit of the wall, beneath the eaves. As it germinated, the roots ran down towards the earth, some perpendicularly, some diagonally; but all creeping along the surface of the wall, no roots having shot out from its perpendicular. As these roots increased, they sent out side rootlets, which, still running on the face of the wall, by and by came in contact with another of the primary roots. Then, instead of creeping _over_ it, as the roots of other trees would have done, the soft tip of the rootlet actually united with the substance of the root at the point of contact, the fibres of the two becoming interlaced, and their united surfaces gradually becoming covered with a common bark. The repetition of this process had produced the very curious wooden net which I have attempted to describe.

A still more remarkable example of this parasitic mode of growth I have seen in the same island. By the side of a mountain road was a large fig-tree, the base of whose trunk was about thirty feet from the ground. Thence it reared itself up pillar-like towards the heavens, and spread abroad its vast horizontal array of branches across the road. From the same point there descended to the earth a hollow cone of roots, interwoven and anastomosed, especially at the upper parts, in the same manner as those of the boiling-house wall, but forming towards the bottom only three or four flattened irregular columns. Into the area inclosed by this network of roots a person might enter, for it was about six feet wide, and, looking up, behold the base of the trunk eight or ten yards above his head.

The explanation of this curious phenomenon depends upon the tendency just mentioned. On this site once stood a large tree of some other species, probably a cotton-tree (_Eriodendron_), or some other soft-timbered kind. The little scarlet berry of a Fig-tree was carried by some vagrant Banana-bird or Pigeon to its boughs, and there devoured. After the little truant had finished his morsel, he perhaps wiped his beak against the rough bark of the trunk, beside the branch on which he was seated. Some of the minute seeds, enveloped in mucilage, were thus left on the tree, which the rain presently washed down into the broad concavity of the forks, where, among moss and rotten leaves, it soon germinated and grew. The roots gradually crept down the trunk of the supporting tree, closely clinging to its bark, and by their interlacement at length formed a living case, enveloping it on every side, and penetrating the earth around its base. The growth of these, and also of the inclosed tree, daily induced a tighter and tighter pressure on the latter, which at length arrived at such a degree as to stop the circulation of the sap between the bark and the wood. Death, of course, was the result, and speedy decay reduced the supporting tree to a heap of mouldering dust: while the parasite, now able to maintain its own position by its hollow cone of roots, increased in size and strength, and overtopped its fellows of the forest;--_a tree standing upon stilts_.