Among other native trees, the beautiful Taxus baccata and the Juniperus oxycedrus, with its great spreading silvery-green branches, cannot be omitted. The former has become almost extinct, and the juniper is also becoming rare, from the reckless way in which the trees have been cut to be used for torches. The fragrant red wood is split into lengths, and several bound together, for this purpose. In gardens their dense growth makes them admirably suited to form an arbour, in the absence of the ubiquitous mirante, as they provide shelter from the wind and perfect shade.
Another evergreen tree, which, though not a native tree, is very commonly to be seen in and about the town of Funchal, is the Ficus comosa, which, as its name implies, is a beautiful tree, though, from its having such far-spreading hungry roots, it is more suited to the roadside than to gardens. A peculiarity of the tree is the slenderness of its stem in comparison to the immense length and weight of its very spreading branches; its bark is a very light grey colour, and is in admirable contrast to the very smooth and shining leaves, which are dark green above and pale beneath, produced in masses on the slender rather hanging branchlets. Two very fine specimens of these trees stand alone on the Rodondo, near the Quinta das Cruzes, from where a very fine view of the town is to be seen from under their immense spreading branches.
JACKARANDA-TREE.
The camphor-trees are at their best in spring, when they are covered with their delicate young green shoots, generally of a very light green, but occasionally having brilliant red shoots. The trees attain to a large size, though not assuming the gigantic proportions which they reach in their native land, Japan. That most uninteresting of all trees—the plane-tree—has been planted along the beds of the rivers in the town; and the oaks are in almost perpetual foliage, as the young leaves appear before the old ones have really fallen.
Grevillea robusta is common in gardens, where, having shed its leaves in winter, the trees are showy in the early summer months, being covered with yellow flowers; but the palm for flowering trees must be given to the Jacaranda mimosafolia, a native of Brazil. Having also shed its long fern-like foliage in the late winter months, early in May the tree bursts into a cloud of blue blossoms, almost as blue as the sky above. The tree is a fairly common one in and about Funchal, and the “blue trees,” as they are generally called, are the admired of all beholders during the few weeks they are in bloom. Nature has done well in ordaining that the foliage should fall before the tree blossoms, as the full beauty of the flower is thus seen unshrouded by leaves.
The list of flowering trees is a long one, but I cannot help mentioning a few others which are ornaments to the gardens when in bloom. The dark red of the Schotia speciosa blossoms also adorn a leafless tree. The tree, which was called after a Dutchman, one Richard van der Schot, in its native country—subtropical Africa—is commonly known as the Kaffir bean-tree, no doubt because its blossoms are more suggestive of bunches of red seeds or beans than flowers.
There are a few specimens of the gorgeous Poinciana regia, which flowers in summer; its peculiar flat, spreading branches are easily recognized. No one who has ever seen these magnificent trees in all their gaudy splendour in tropical regions can ever forget their beauty. They deserve their name, the royal peacock flower, though they are more commonly known as flamboyant-trees, from the likeness of their leafless branches, clad with brilliant orange-red nasturtium-like blossoms, to flaming torches. In Madeira the tree does not attain to its full beauty, as possibly the difference between the climate of its native home—Madagascar—and that of Madeira is too great. Here the less showy variety, known as Poinciana pulcherrima, thrives better.
At the same season the uncouth growth of the bare and leafless frangipani or plumeria trees bursts into blossom—white, cream-coloured, or pale pink—and fills the air with its heavy fragrance, recalling the oppressive, almost stifling, atmosphere of Buddhist temples in Ceylon, where frangipani blossoms are almost regarded as sacred to Buddha, and are always called “temple flowers.”