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The savannahs, which are covered with grasses and slender plants, present a surprising luxuriance and diversity of vegetation; piles of granite blocks lie here and there, and, at the margins of the plains, occur deep valleys and ravines, the humid soil of which is covered with arums, heliconias, llianas.
We saw with astonishment plantain-leaved heliconias eighteen feet high, the praga palm-tree, and arborescent arums, following the course of the river, even to those subterranean places.
No lianas hang from the trees, and, excepting a few narrow-leaved Tillandsias, no epiphytes nestle on the branches and trunks. Below, instead of shrubby palms, large-leaved heliconias, and curious melastomae, the ground was bare and brown from the fallen leaves of the pines, excepting that in some places light grass had sprung up; in others the common bracken-fern of Europe.
On the very borders of these plains and this open country, glens are seen scarcely lighted by the rays of the setting sun, and hollows where the humid soil, loaded with arums, heliconias, and lianas, manifests at every step the wild fecundity of nature.
Plants that love humidity adorn the scenery surrounding the cataracts. We there find in the plains groups of heliconias and other scitamineae with large and glossy leaves, bamboos, and the three palm-trees, the murichi, jagua, and vadgiai, each of which forms a separate group. The murichi, or mauritia with scaly fruits, is the celebrated sago-tree of the Guaraon Indians.
The obstruction caused by the vegetation gradually diminished; it was, however, necessary to cut down some heliconias; but these arborescent plants were not now very thick or high. The peaks of the Silla themselves, as we have several times mentioned, are covered only with gramina and small shrubs of befaria.
'But this luxury of vegetation embellishes not only the outside of the vault, it appears even in the vestibule of the grotto. We saw with astonishment plantain-leaved Heliconias, eighteen feet high, the Praga palm-trees, and arborescent Arums follow the banks of the river, even to those subterranean places.
Under the perpetual shade of the evergreens haunt Heliconias and other delicate butterflies, who seem to dread the blaze outside, and flutter gently from leaf to leaf, their colouring which is usually black with markings of orange, crimson, or blue coming into strongest contrast with the uniform green of leaf and grass.
I have been particularly glad to read about the birds' nests, and I must procure the Intellectual Observer; but the point which I think struck me most was about its being of no use to the Heliconias to acquire in a slight degree a disagreeable taste. What a curious case is that about the coral snakes. The summary, and indeed the whole, is excellent, and I have enjoyed it much.
The cannas, the heliconias with fine purple flowers, the costuses, and other plants of the amomum family, here attain eight or ten feet in height, and their fresh tender verdure, their silky gloss, and the extraordinary development of the parenchyma, form a striking contrast with the brown colour of the arborescent ferns, the foliage of which is delicately shaped.
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