Physical geography. By Mary Somerville ...

CHAP. XXVIT. FLORA OF SOUTH AMERICA. 371
mixed with lilies and other bulbous flowers, sensitive mimosas and
palms constantly varying in species.
No language can describe the glory of the forests of the Amazon
and Brazil, the endless variety of form, the contrasts of colour and
size: there even the largest trees bear brilliant blossoms; scarlet,
purple, blue, rose-colour, and golden yellow, are blended with every
possible shade of green. Majestic trees, as the bombax ceiba (or
silk-cotton tree), the dark-leaved mora with its white blossoms, the
fig, cachew, and mimosa tribes, which are here of unwonted dimensions, and a thousand other giants of the forest, are contrasted with
the graceful palm, the delicate acacia, reeds of 100 feet high, grasses
of 40, and tree-ferns in myriads. Passiflorm and slender creepers
twine round the lower plants, while others as thick as cables climb
the lofty trees, drop again to the ground, rise anew and stretch from
bough to bough, wreathed with their own leaves and flowers, yet
intermixed with the vividly coloured blossoms of the Orchidem. An
impenetrable and everlasting vegetation covers the ground; decay
and death are concealed by the exuberance of life; the trees are
loaded with parasites while alive -they become masses of living
plants when they die.
Ond twenty-ninth part of the flowering plants of the Brazilian
forests are of the coffee tribe, and the rose-colouring and yellowflowering bignonias are among their greatest ornaments, where all
is grace and beauty. Thousands of herbs and trees must still be
undescribed where each stream has its own vegetation. The palmtrees are the glory of lhe forest: 81 species of these plants are
natives of the intertropical parts of Brazil alone; they are of all
sizes, from such as have hardly any stem to those that rise 130
feet.' In those parts of Brazil less favoured by nature the forest
consists of stunted deciduous trees, and the boundless plains have
grasses, interspersed with myrtles and other shrubs.
The forests on the banks of the Paraguay and Vermejo are almost
as rich as those of the tropics. Noble trees furnish timber and
fruit; the algaroba, a kind of acacia, produces clusters of a bean,
of which the Indians make bread, and also a strong fermented
liquor; the palm and immense forests of the Copernicia cerifera
grow there; and the yerbamate, the leaves and twigs of which are
universally used as tea in South America, and were in use before
the Spanish conquest. It is a species of holly, [flex paraguensis]
with leaves three inches long.
Professor Martius, of Munich, in his great work on Palms, has described
500, accompanied with excellent coloured plates. It is supposed that the
number of species throughout the world amounts to 1000.
2 There are innumerable points of analogy between the vegetation of the
Brazils, equinoctial Africa, and India; but the number of species common
to these three continents is very small.