In a description of a mountain scene in Tahiti, drawn with graphic power by Charles Darwin, the Banana forms a prominent element:—"I could not look on the surrounding plants without admiration. On every side were forests of Banana; the fruit of which, though serving for food in various ways, lay in heaps decaying on the ground.... As the evening drew to a close, I strolled beneath the gloomy shade of the Bananas up the course of the stream. My walk was soon brought to a close, by coming to a waterfall between two and three hundred feet high; and again above this there was another.... In the little recess where the water fell, it did not appear that a breath of wind had ever blown. The thin edges of the great leaves of the Banana, damp with spray, were unbroken, instead of being, as is so generally the case, split into a thousand shreds. From our position, almost suspended on the mountain-side, there were glimpses into the depths of the neighbouring valleys: and the lofty points of the central mountains, towering up within sixty degrees of the zenith, hid half the evening sky. Thus seated, it was a sublime spectacle to watch the shades of night gradually obscuring the last and highest pinnacles."[218]
This scene must have been one of surpassing sublimity and loveliness. Few doubtless have ever beheld anything that can be compared with it. But perhaps many have felt—I have, often,—that there are occasions in which the sense of the beautiful in nature becomes almost painfully overpowering. I have gazed on some very lovely prospects, bathed perhaps in the last rays of the evening sun, till my soul seemed to struggle with a very peculiar undefinable sensation, as if longing for a power to enjoy, which I was conscious I did not possess, and which found relief only in tears. I have felt conscious that there were elements of enjoyment and admiration there, which went far beyond my capacity of enjoying and admiring; and I have delighted to believe, that, by and by, when, in the millennial kingdom of Jesus, and, still more, in the remoter future, in the dispensation of the fulness of times, the earth—the "new earth,"—shall be endowed with a more than paradisaical glory, there will be given to redeemed man a greatly increased power and capacity for drinking in, and enjoying the augmented loveliness. Doubtless the risen and glorified saints, sitting with the King of kings upon His throne, will have the senses of their spiritual bodies expanded in capacity beyond what we can now form the slightest conception of; and as all then will be enjoyment of the most exquisite kind, and absolutely unalloyed by interruption or satiety,—the eye will at length be satisfied with seeing, and the ear be satisfied with hearing. "I shall be satisfied, when I awake up with thy likeness."
It is in Flowers that the beauty of the vegetable world chiefly resides; and I shall now therefore select a few examples from the profusion of lovely objects which the domain proper of Flora presents to us.
That very curious tribe of plants, the Orchideæ, so remarkable for the mimic forms of other things, that its blossoms delight to assume, is also pre-eminent in gorgeous beauty. Take the Sobraliæ,—terrestrial species from Central America, where they form extensive thickets, growing thrice the height of man, with slender nodding stems, and alternate willow-like leaves, and terminal racemes loaded with snow-white, pink, crimson, or violet flowers.[219] Imagine the crushing through "thickets" of the lovely S. macrantha! The large lily-like blossoms of this species are eight inches long, and as many wide, of the richest purple crimson, and of the most elegant shape conceivable, with the lip so wrapped round the column as to appear funnel-shaped, bordered by an exquisitely-cut fringe.
I have before alluded to Phajus Tankervilliæ, that rich lily-like spike of blossom which I stumbled on in the midst of a dense thicket in the mountains of Jamaica. Another terrestrial genus of great elegance is Cypripedium, of which we have one native species, C. calceolus, the yellow lady's slipper,—one of the most charming, but the rarest and most difficult of propagation, of British plants. But this is far excelled in beauty by many of the exotic species; as, for example, the exquisite C. barbatum from Malacca. The very foliage is princely; for the nervures and cross-veins form a network pattern of dark green upon the light green area of each broad leaf. The blossom rears up its noble head erect, with its standard-petal of white, striped with green and purple, the wing-petals studded with purple tubercles along their edges, and the lip or slipper-shaped petal of a dark purple hue.
My readers may have occasionally noticed a little plant, in the most recherchées stove-houses, of so much delicacy and preciousness that it is invariably kept under a bell-glass. I mean the Anæctochilus setaceus. It belongs to this tribe, and is a terrestrial species, growing about the roots of the trees in the humid forests of Ceylon. Its exquisite loveliness has attracted the attention of even the apathetic Cingalese, who call it by the poetical epithet of Wanna Raja, or king of the forest. It does not appear to possess any peculiar attractiveness in its blossoms,—indeed, I have never seen it in flower; but its leaves, which grow in opposite pairs, are elegantly heart-shaped, of a deep rich greenish-brown hue, approaching to black, of a surface which resembles velvet, reticulated all over with pale golden veins, which, being numerous and minute, have a very charming appearance, somewhat like the pale network on black patches which we see in the wings of some dragon-flies.
The epiphyte Orchids are also magnificent in beauty. One of the handsomest genera is Dendrobium, containing many species, mostly natives of Southern Asia and the great islands. Perhaps the finest of all is D. nobile, of which the sepals and petals are greenish-white, tipped with rich purple, and the downy tube-like lip is of the same regal hue in the interior, with a pale yellow margin.
By the side of this you may set the lovely Huntleya violacea, one of the discoveries of Sir R. Schomburgk in the interior of Guiana. Its broad wavy petals of the softest richest violet, "vary in intensity from deepest sapphire to the mild iridescence of opal." This fine flower has a melancholy interest from its being associated with the death of Sir Robert's friend and fellow-servant, Mr Reiss. The gorgeous scenes of tropical vegetation in which the plant was found, and the sad accident, are thus depicted by the accomplished traveller:—
"I discovered the Huntleya violacea for the first time in October 1837, then on my ascent of the river Essequibo. The large cataract, Cumaka Toto, or Silk Cotton Fall, obliged us to unload our corials, and to transport the luggage overland, in order to avoid the dangers which a mass of water, at once so powerful and rapid, and bounded by numerous rocks, might offer to our ascent. While the Indians were thus occupied, I rambled about one of the small islands, which the diverging arms of the river formed in their descent, and the vegetation of which had that peculiar lively appearance which is so characteristic of the vicinity of cataracts, where a humid cloud, the effects of the spray, always hovers around them. Blocks of syenite were heaped together; and while their black shining surface contrasted strongly with the whitish foam of the torrent, and with the curly waves beating against the rocky barriers—as if angry at the boundary which they attempted to set to the incensed element—their dome-shaped summits were adorned with a vegetation at once rich and interesting. Heliconias, Tillandsias, Bromelias, Ferns, Pothos, Cyrtopodiums, Epidendrums, Peperomias, all appeared to struggle for the place which so small a surface afforded to them. The lofty mountains, Akaywanna, Comute, or Taquia, and Tuasinki, recede and form an amphitheatre, affording a highly interesting scene, and no doubt the most picturesque of that part of the river Essequibo.
"I was attracted by a number of Oncidium altissimum which covered one of the rocky piles, and astonished me by their long stems and bright colour of their flowers, when my attention was more powerfully attracted by a plant, the appearance of which, although different from the pseudo-bulbous tribe, proclaimed, nevertheless, that it belonged to that interesting family, the Orchideæ. The specimens were numerous; and clothed almost, with their vivid green, the rugged and dark trunks of the gigantic trees, which contributed to the majestic scene around me. It was not long before I discovered one of these plants in flower. It was as singular as it was new to me;—the sepals and petals of a rich purple and velvet-like appearance; the helmet, to which form the column bore the nearest resemblance, of the same colour; the labellum striated with yellow.