Travels on the Amazon

by Alfred Russel Wallace

What we may fairly allow of tropical vegetation is, that there is a much greater number of species, and a greater variety of forms, than in the temperate zones. Among this great variety occur, as we might reasonably expect, the most striking and brilliant flowers, and the most remarkable forms of stem and foliage. But there is no evidence to show that the proportion of species bearing brightly coloured, compared to those bearing inconspicuous flowers, is any greater in the tropics than in the temperate regions; and with regard to individuals—which is, after all, what produces the effects of vegetation—it seems probable that there is a greater mass of brilliant colouring and picturesque beauty, produced by plants in the temperate, than in the tropical regions.

There are several reasons which lead us to this conclusion. In the tropics, a greater proportion of the surface is covered either with dense forests or with barren deserts, neither of which can exhibit many flowers. Social plants are less common in the tropics, and thus masses of colour are less frequently produced. Individual objects may be more brilliant and striking, but the general effect will not be so great, as that of a smaller number of less conspicuous plants, grouped together in masses of various colours, so strikingly displayed in the meadows and groves of the temperate regions.

The changing hues of autumn, and the tender green of spring, are particular beauties which are not seen in tropical regions, and which are quite unsurpassed by anything that exists there. The wide expanse of green meadows and rich pastures is also wanting; and, however much individual objects may please and astonish, the effect of the distant landscape is decidedly superior in the temperate parts of the world.

The sensations of pleasure we experience on seeing natural objects, depends much upon association of ideas with their uses, their novelty, or their history. What causes the sensations we feel on gazing upon a waving field of golden corn? Not, surely, the mere beauty of the sight, but the associations we connect with it. We look on it as a national blessing, as the staff of life, as the most precious produce of the soil; and this makes it beautiful in our eyes.

So, in the tropics, the broad-leaved banána, beautiful in itself, becomes doubly so, when looked upon as producing a greater quantity of food in a given time, and on a limited space, than any other plant. We take it as a type of the luxuriance of the tropics,—we look at its broad leaves, the produce of six months' growth,—we think of its delicious and wholesome fruit: and all this is beauty, as we gaze upon it.

In the same manner, a field of sugar-cane or an extensive plantation of cotton produces similar sensations: we think of the thousands they will feed and clothe, and the thought clothes them with beauty.

Palms too are subject to the same influence. They are elegant and graceful in themselves; they are almost all useful to man; they are associated with the brightness and warmth of the tropics: and thus they acquire an additional interest, a new beauty.

To the naturalist everything in the tropics acquires this kind of interest, for some reason or other. One plant is a tropical form, and he examines it with curiosity and delight. Another is allied to some well-known European species, and this too attracts his attention. The structure of some are unknown, and he is pleased to examine them. The locality of another is doubtful, and he feels a great pleasure in determining it. He is ever examining individual objects, and confounds his own interest in them, from a variety of causes, with the sensations produced by their beauty, and thus is led to give exaggerated descriptions of the luxuriance and splendour of the vegetation.

As most travellers are naturalists, this supposition will account for the ideas of the tropics generally obtained from a perusal of their works.

If I have come to a different conclusion, it is not that I am incapable of appreciating the splendours of tropical scenery, but because I believe that they are not of the kind usually represented, and that the scenery of our own land is, of its own kind, unsurpassed: there is nothing approaching it in the tropics, nor is the scenery of the tropics to be found with us. There,—singular forms of stems and climbers, gigantic leaves, elegant palms, and individual plants with brilliant flowers, are the characteristic features. Here,—an endless carpet of verdure, with masses of gay blossoms, the varying hues of the foliage, and the constant variety of plain and forest, meadow and woodland, more than individual objects, are what fill the beholder with delight.