Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

o 18 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
; very scanty yet there are even a few scattered
trees, of humble growth, some of which grow down
to the very beach. The species
that most abound
are a stout branched Cactus (Cereus peruvianus],
orowincr to ;o feet, truncheons of whose trunk serve
o o *J
the people for stools; and a beautiful Jacquinia
(J. arniillaris] of the same height. The latter has
somewhat the aspect of the Holly, from the dark
green, rigid, spiny-pointed leaves ; but
the flowers,
which are very numerous, are of a deep vermilion
and very sweet-scented ; and they are succeeded by-
fruits resembling small oranges in colour and shape,
although uneatable and narcotic, and used by the
inhabitants for stupefying fish. 1 When I arrived
here, with the exception of these and a few other
shrubby trees, and of a winding green line of
mangroves (marking the course of a creek), the
whole country had the aspect of a barren sandy
waste. Even the range of hills that runs parallel
to the coast at a distance of one to two leagues
showed only brown and withered shrubs. But
when it began to rain a change came o'er the face
of nature more sudden and surprising than even
that of a bright spring succeeding a severe winter
in Europe. "The desert blossomed like the rose."
The sandy plains became in a few days clad with
curious and pretty grasses, most of which
verdure :
I had not even seen elsewhere ;
flowering
annuals,
including a Polygala not prettier than the Milkwort
of our English heaths, but of nobler growth
(i to 2 feet) and bearing long spikes of roseate
flowers ;
patches
of apparently dead brush, scattered
1 The genus jacquinia belongs to the Alyrsinacere, an order allied to the
primroses.
ED.