The Flowers and Gardens of Madeira

by Florence Du Cane

TREES AND SHRUBS

The list of indigenous and naturalized trees and shrubs growing in Madeira is such a long and varied one that it is not surprising that Captain Cook, in his account of his first voyage, should have said: “Nature has been so liberal in her gifts to Madeira. The soil is so rich, and there is such a variety of climate, that there is scarcely any article, either of the necessaries or luxuries of life, which could not be cultivated there.”

The place of honour among the island trees must be given to those belonging to the laurel tribe, of which there are a great number, and splendid specimens still remain in the country, survivors of the wholesale destruction of the primeval forests. To this tribe belongs the til, one of the most beautiful of evergreen trees, its shiny green leaves contrasting admirably with the light grey bark of its stems. The old trees grow to a very large size, and in the Boa Ventura Valley and along the road to Sao Vincente there remain some grand old specimens, the immense girth of whose trunks speaks for itself of their great age. The true name of this so-called laurel appears to have been a matter of some uncertainty, as Miss Taylor, in “Madeira: Its Scenery, and How to See It,” classes it as Oreodaphne fœtens, describing it as “the grandest of native trees”; while Mr. Bowdick, in 1823, says: “The til has been confounded with Laurus fœtens, from the strong, disagreeable odour of the wood when first cut. It is very valuable for its timber, being extremely hard and tough. It would appear that the Portuguese call both Laurus fœtens and Laurus cupuleris til, as they say there are two kinds of til, and both are equally fetid.” In the damper regions beautiful lichens grow luxuriantly on the stems of the trees, and ferns have found a home in the cracks of the bark. The value of its timber has no doubt been responsible for the destruction of the trees. When polished, the wood is of a very dark colour, almost as black as ebony.

The vinhatico, whose wood is the mahogany of Madeira and closely resembles it, is another of the native trees, and again I find it classed as Laurus indica by Mr. Bowdick, who describes it as one of the island’s most valuable products, while Miss Taylor describes it as Persea indica. The wood, when cut, is of a deep red colour before being polished. It is a fine forest tree, and has, as a rule, light green foliage, though it occasionally turns crimson. It has given its name to one of the most beautiful bits of scenery in the island, as the Levada dos Vinhaticos, running above the village of Santa Anna, passes through some of the grandest scenery in Madeira. Professor Piazzi Smyth has gone so far as to assert, in “Madeira Spectroscopic,” that some of the largest ships of the Spanish Armada were either built of, or internally decorated with, the wood of the tils and vinhaticos of Madeira. This would appear to be a flight of imagination, or a revelation of the learned man’s inner consciousness, as it is difficult, if not impossible, to find any grounds for such an assertion, there being no document extant stating what timber was employed for the building of that celebrated fleet.

The laurel familiar to us under the name of Portugal laurel, Cerasus lusitanica, assumes the proportions of forest trees, and when I saw it in spring, covered with its long racemes of creamy-white flowers, it quickly dispelled the aversion with which I had always regarded the stumpy, blackened specimens pining under the smoky atmosphere of suburban shrubberies.

Laurus Canariensis is a fragrant form of laurel, and the country-people extract oil from its yellow berries.

Picconia excelsa, the Pao branco of the Portuguese, is generally to be found in the same districts as the til-trees, and attains to a height of forty or fifty feet. Its hard, heavy white wood, being in great demand for the keels of boats, is very valuable. Like many other native trees, it is for this very reason rapidly becoming scarce, as its destroyers, having no thought for the future, omit to cultivate it from seed, which grows readily.

The Clethra arborea, or lily of the valley tree, as it is called by the English, on account of the resemblance of its spikes of creamy-white flowers to those of a lily of the valley, fills the whole air with its delicious though somewhat heavy fragrance when the tree is in flower in summer. Yet another fragrant tree peculiar to Madeira is the Pittosporum coriaceum, which has been christened the incense-tree, as early in April the air, especially near sundown, is filled with the almost overpowering scent of its clusters of small greenish-white flowers. The bark is very smooth and even, and of a light ash colour. The tree is now somewhat rare in its natural state, but is frequently seen in gardens, where it has no doubt been transplanted from its original home among the rocks, as Mr. Lowe, in his “Flora of Madeira,” remarks how he only noticed it growing on high rocks or in inaccessible places.

One of the first trees which is sure to strike the eye of the new-comer is the dragon-tree, or Dracæna draco, on account of its peculiar growth. From having been a common tree on the island it has now become a rare one in its native state; in fact, the only ones I have ever seen under those conditions are a few sole survivors on the rocks beyond the Brazen Head, where formerly they grew in great numbers. Now by their quaint growth they give a distinctive feature to many a garden, and it is consoling to know that they are easily raised from seed. Mr. Bowdick, in writing of the tree, says: “The dragon-tree was considered by Humboldt as exclusively indigenous to India, but I am inclined to think it is also natural to Porto Santo, and perhaps to Madeira—not from the few specimens which now remain on these islands, but from the account of Cadamosto, who visited Porto Santo in 1445, and writes that the dragon-trees of Porto Santo were so large that fishing-boats capable of containing six or seven men were made out of the trunks, and that the inhabitants fattened their pigs on the fruit; but he adds that so many boats, shields, and corn-measures had been made out of them, that even in his time there was scarcely a dragon-tree to be seen in the island.”

The stem exudes a gum, and the following account of the means of collecting it is taken from a Portuguese account of “The Discovery of Madeira,” written in 1750: “All over the island grows a tree from which the dragon’s blood is procured. This is performed by making incisions in the bark, from whence the gum issues very plentifully into pots hung upon the branches to receive it. The people use it as a sovereign remedy for bruises, to which they are very much exposed by traversing their rocky country; and this, with one panacea more, completes their whole materia medica—that is, balsam of Peru, imported from the Brazils in small gourds by their annual ships. These two, they imagine, have power to cure almost all disorders, especially those that are external.”