The barren and sandy plains of Peru, fertilized by the numerous water-courses which furrow them, are covered with thick bloom and verdure in the rainy season. With the Gramineæ and Juncaceæ—the grasses and rushes common in these Steppes—mingle different members of the Liliaceæ family, and especially several kinds of Lily. The higher region of the eastern face of the Peruvian Cordillera, situated between 10,000 and 13,000 feet of elevation, forms an immense undulating plateau watered by the upper course of the Maranon. Everywhere, over a considerable area, the plains are clothed with a meagre vegetation, or alternate with wide morasses, lakes, and brooks. Among the plants which people them is a species of the Gramineæ, Stipa itchu; and there are also several Alpine varieties, Compositæ, Leguminosæ, and one of the Cyperaceæ family, the Cyperus articulatus.
The Llanos of Caraccas, and of the Rio Apure and the Meta, over which roam immense herds of cattle, are, in the strictest sense of the term, says Humboldt,[114] “grassy plains.” Their prevalent vegetation, belonging to the two families of Cyperaceæ and Gramineæ, consists of various species of Paspalum, P. leptostachyum and P. linticulare; of Kyllingia, of Panicum, Anthephora, Aristida, Vilfa, and Anthistiria. Only here and there are found, interspersed among the Gramineæ, a few herbaceous dicotyledonous plants, consisting of two very low-growing species of Mimosa (Sensitive Plant)—Mimosa intermedia and Mimosa dormiens—which are great favourites with the wild horses and cattle. The natives give to this group of plants, which close their delicate feathery leaves on being touched, the expressive name of Dormideras—“sleepy plants.” Nota tree is visible for miles; but where solitary individuals occur, they are, in moist places, the Mauritia Palm; in arid districts, a Protacea—namely, the Rhopula complicata; also the highly useful Palma da Corija, or de Sombrero; and our Corypha inermis, an umbrella palm, whose leaves are used to thatch the roofs of huts.
The Mauritia palm, Palm Moriche, Mauritia flexuosa, Quiteve, or Ita palm—for by any or all of these names it is known—belongs to the family of Lepidocaryeæ. The trunk grows as high as 26 feet, but it probably requires from 120 to 150 years to reach this height. It extends high up on the declivity of the Duida Mountains, and forms in moist places beautiful groups of a shining emerald verdure, like that of our European alder groves. The trees preserve the humidity of the ground by their shade, and hence the Indians say that the Mauritia draws the water round its roots by a mysterious attraction. From its tops the Indians frequently suspend their hammocks to escape the attacks of the mosquitoes.
Sir Walter Raleigh was the first who brought to England this fruit of the Mauritia palm, which he very justly likened, on account of its scales, to a fir cone.
| 1. Anthephora elegans. | 3. Anthistiria ciliata. |
| 2. Panicum Cajennense. | 4. Aristida capillacea. |
| 5. Cyperus articulatus. | |
The plains of the Rio Negro and the Amazons are the home and habitat of the most remarkable of all aquatic plants, the Victoria regia,[115] truly deserving its royal rank on account of its curious conformation and splendid beauty. It is said to have been first observed by Häuke, about 1801, and afterwards to have been noticed by Bonpland, D’Orbigny, and others; but the first person who accurately described it was Pöppig, in 1832, who saw it in the river Amazons. Sir Richard Schomburgk, who discovered it in the rivers of Guiana, was, I believe, the first to introduce it in England, where a splendid specimen may be seen at Kew, another at Chatsworth, and a third in the Botanic Garden of Glasgow. Its thick fleshy root-stocks send up a number of long cylindrical leaf-stalks, traversed by air canals, and armed with stout conical prickles. The blade of the leaf is circular, and floats on the surface of the water; when fully developed, it measures from six to twelve feet in diameter, and its margin being uniformly turned upwards to the depth of two or three inches, it assumes the appearance of a large shallow tray. The lower surface is traversed by a number of very prominent veins, radiating from the centre to the margin, and connected with one another by smaller transverse nerves; so that the whole under-side, which is of a purplish colour, is divided into a network of irregular quadrangular compartments or open cells, admirably fitting the leaf for floating on the water. The flowers rise upon prickly stalks. They are more than a foot in diameter, with the white outer petals inclined downwards; while the central rose-coloured ones, with the stamens, remain erect: the whole presenting the fanciful appearance of a central rose-coloured crown resting on a circular range of snowy and most gracefully curved petals. The fruit is a sort of globular capsule, about the size of a child’s head, and formidably beset with prickles. The interior is fleshy, and divided into numerous cells, full of round farinaceous seeds, which are eaten roasted by the Spaniards. Hence, in some parts of South America, it is called Maïs del Agua, or Water Maize.
The pools and lagoons of this region nourish numerous other aquatic plants, among which it will suffice to particularize the Scyndapsus fragrans and the Raphia tædigera.
Turning now to the vast area of the Brazilian empire, we find it divided into matos (or woods) and campos (or open plains). When the inhabitants would convert into cultivable land a district occupied by forest, they set fire to it during the dry season, and soon a vegetation of frutescent but dwarf species succeeds the primitive vegetation. By renewing this purifying process a second and a third time, the soil finally becomes covered with a species of fern closely resembling our large Pteris, Pteris caudata; and if the spot be once more abandoned, it is speedily taken possession of by a viscous, grayish, and fœtid species of Gramineæ, well known locally by the name of Capim gordura, to botanists by that of Tristegis glutinosa. So boundless a voracity has this plant, that it wholly expels from certain regions another and less tenacious variety of the Gramineæ, the Saccharum, or Sapa. The Capim gordura constitutes in itself almost the entire flora of the artificial campos. It is but an indifferent fodder, and cattle derive from it little vigour.