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page 240 ---trees---
A very peculiar and most striking effect
in the picture is that produced by the trumpet tree (1) among the
other lofty forms of the forest. The smooth ash-grey stems rise, slightly
bending, to a considerable height, and spread out at the top into verticillate branches standing at right angles, which have at the extremities large
tufts of deeply lobated white leaves. The contour of the tree appears
to indicate at once hardness and pliability, stiffness and elasticity,
and affords the painter a subject equally interesting and difficult for
the exercise of his pencil. The  flowering caesalpinia (2), the airy laurel,
the lofty geoffroea (3),
the soap trees with their shining leaves, the slender Barbados cedar,
the ormosia (4) with
its pennated leaves; the tapia or garlic pear tree, so called from the strong smell of its
bark; the maina (5), and a thousand as yet undescribed trees
are mingled confusedly together, forming groups, agreeably contrasted
by the diversity of their forms and tints. Here and there the dark crown
of a Chilean fir (6) among the lighter green appears like a stranger
amidst the natives of the tropics, while the towering stems of the palms,
with their waving crowns, are an incomparable ornament of the forests,
the beauty and majesty of which no language can describe.
(1) Cecropia
peltata, L., Cecropia
palmata, W. (2)Caesalpinia
brasiliensis, C. chinata,
L. (3) Geoffroea inermis,
Sw., G. racemosa, Poir., G. violacea, P. (4) Sapindus Saponaria, L.; Cedrela odorata, L.; Ormosia
dasycarpa, O. coccinea,
Jacks. (5) Crataeva Tapia,
L., called by the Portuguese Pao d'alha; Maina
brasiliensis, Raddi. (6) Araucaria
imbricata, Pav.
page 241 ---flowers---
If the eye turns from the proud forms of those ancient denizens of the
forest to the more humble and lower which clothe the ground with a  rich
verdure, it is delighted with the splendour and gay variety of the flowers.
The purple blossoms of the rhexia,
profuse clusters of the melastoma, myrtles and eugenia (1); the delicate foliage of many rubiaceae and ardisiae (2) with their pretty
flowers blended with the singularly formed leaves of the theophrasta;
the conchocarpus; the
reed-like dwarf palms (3); the brilliant spadix of the costus;
the ragged hedges of the maranta (4), from which a squamous fern rises; magnificent stifftia;
thorny solana; large flowering gardenias and coutarea (5) entwined with garlands of mikania and bignonia.
(1) Rhexia princeps, Rhexia
grandiflora, Rhexia holosericea,
Humb.; Melastoma tomentosa, Melastoma lutescens, Melastoma mucronata, Humb.
; Myrtus splendens, Myrtus disticha, Myrtus lineata Sw.; Eugenia Mini, Eugenia
gujanensis, Eugenia Cumete, Aubl., (2) Tetramerium
occidentale, G.; Nonatelia
paniculata, Pagamea gujanensis; Coffea paniculata Aubl.; Duhamelia patens L., Duhamelia chrysantha Sw.; Ardisia tinifolia, Ardisia
parasitica Sw., (3) Theophrasta
longifolia, Jacq.; Conchocarpus
Macrophyllus, Mik.; Geonoma
simplicifrons, Geonoma
pinnatifrons W., Geonoma pauciflora, nob., (4) Costus laevis R.P., Costus
spiralis Rosc.; Maranta
gracilis, Maranta obliqua
Rudge, Maranta arundinacea,
L., (5) Stifftia chrysantha,
Mik.; Solanum violaceum, Solanum macranthum Lam., Solanum paniculatum, L.; Balbisii
Dun., Balbisii chloranthum,
Spr.; Gardenia armata
Sw.; Solena gracilis
Rudge; Coutarea speciosa
Aubl.
 
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