CHAPTER X
CREEPERS
The year opens in Madeira with a wealth of blossom, as in the month of January the bougainvilleas, for which Madeira is so justly famous, will be in all their flaunting beauty. It is true that the lilac-coloured Bougainvillea glabra will have already shed most of its blossoms, as it is a summer-flowering creeper, but it is replaced by so many other varieties that its pale beauty is forgotten. The brick-red coloured Bougainvillea spectabilis—which must have the full force of the sun upon it in order to bring out its colour to the best advantage, being apt otherwise to look a false colour—when grown over pergolas, or corridors as they are called in Madeira, or allowed to wander at will over a wall or bank, provides a gorgeous mass of colour. I had seen bougainvilleas in other countries, but only grown against walls, and closely cropped by shears, in order that the wood might be sufficiently ripened by the heat of the summer to insure its wealth of blossoms. Here such care is not necessary, and the natural beauty of the plant can be seen to full advantage where it has escaped the ruthless shears of the Portuguese gardener. Branches of blossom, ten, fifteen, or even twenty feet long, show the strength with which the plant grows; in fact, many a splendid specimen has had to be sacrificed, for fear it should undermine a terrace wall or shake the very foundations of a house.
To the landscape gardener who is fastidious as to the scheme of colouring in his garden, the placing of all the varieties of bougainvillea (called after the French navigator, De Bougainville) forms one of his chief difficulties. Each in itself seems too beautiful to be discarded; but, unless the garden is of considerable extent, I would recommend the owner of the garden to harden his heart and make his choice of the colour he prefers and stick to it, only growing the one variety in some great mass, be it as the gorgeous canopy of his corridor, or clothing his garden-wall.
Many persons give the palm for beauty to the deep magenta variety, speciosa, as it stands alone for colour. In all the kingdom of flowers I know no other blossom of the same tone of colour; it is a thing apart, this royal purple flower. No one who has seen the plant which covers the cliff below the fort can ever forget its beauty. Seen from the sea, it stands out like a purple rock in the middle of the city. By the middle of January it will be in all its gaudy, garish splendour, the admired of all beholders.
It can well be imagined how these two varieties—the one brick-red, the other deep magenta—would strike a jarring note in any garden if grown side by side, or even within sight of each other. And do not imagine that Madeira only boasts of these two coloured bougainvilleas in its winter season. From these two have sprung many others—seedlings, no doubt, hybridized in a country where the heat of the sun will ripen most seeds. So now there are rosy reds, lighter or darker, to choose from, shading through a range of colour which, like the beauty of its parents, seems to stand alone.
The plant has, I consider, two enemies in the island. One is the ordinary uneducated Portuguese gardener, who seems to think that the art of gardening consists in so closely pruning a creeper or shrub that all the natural grace and beauty of the plant is lost for ever, as often as not choosing the moment for this cruel treatment when the plant is in full flower. Though Nature has done her best to protect the plant from the hand of man, by giving it long, hooked thorns, which are exceedingly sharp, and, I believe, somewhat poisonous, even this has not been sufficient, and many a beautiful specimen have I seen maimed and dwarfed beyond repair in a few hours by an ignorant and overzealous gardener. Its second enemy is rats, which unfortunately have a great love for the bark on the stems of old plants, and many a plant narrowly escapes destruction at their hands, or rather teeth.
The second place in the list of creepers for the New Year must be given to the flaming orange Bignonia venusta, a native of South America, with its dense clusters of finger-shaped flowers. This has now become the commonest of all creepers in Madeira, and there is hardly a road in the neighbourhood of Funchal where all through the month of January there is not a stretch of wall bearing its gaudy burden, or a mirante (as the arbour or summer-house dear to the hearts of the Portuguese is called) without its roof of golden blossoms. There is a long list of bignonias and tecomas—a family so closely allied to each other as to be almost united—whose full beauty is for a later season; and only stray blossoms of the deep red Bignonia cherare, with its long yellow-throated trumpets, appear in the winter months, but sufficient to give promise of glories to come in the month of April.
