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One more plantation, a grove of the stately areca-nut or betel trees, we determined to visit before taking the boat. The smooth road was bordered everywhere with the beautiful melastoma or Singapore rose, of perennial foliage and always in bloom, underneath acacias and palms; and the very earth was carpeted with beauty and fragrance enough to have formed the bridal-couch of a fairy queen.
I got worse and worse at home and was sick every day for two months; so came here, when I suddenly broke down and could do nothing; but I hope I am now very slowly recovering, but am very weak. Sincere thanks about Melastoma: these flowers have baffled me, and I have caused several friends much useless labour; though, Heaven knows, I have thrown away time enough on them myself.
Brown brought from the same locality a Melastoma, which, according to him, was a shrub, three or four feet high. Oct. 15. We continued our journey in a north-west direction. The first five or six miles was over a succession of very lightly timbered box-flats, alternating with small plains.
So long as its bed is below 5000 feet, a tropical vegetation prevails in the gorge, and along the terraces, consisting of tall bamboo, Bauhinia, Acacia, Melastoma, etc.; but the steep mountain sides above are either bare and grassy, or cliffs with scattered shrubs and trees, and their summits are of splintered slaty gneiss, bristling with pines: those faces exposed to the south and east are invariably the driest and most grassy; while the opposite are well wooded.
These nests were composed of a soft cotton-down, which the ants had collected from a species of Melastoma, a handsome shrub found growing in these regions; and this down Guapo knew to be the best for blood-stopping. Even Don Pablo had heard of its being used by the Indians for this purpose, and knew it by the name of "yesca de hormigas," or "touchwood of ants."
The bark-tree, which she has provided as the only effectual febrifuge in the deadly heats of the inferior region; the cyprus and melastoma, with their superb violet blossoms; gigantic fuchsias of every possible variety, and evergreen trees of lofty stature, covered with flowers, adorn that delightful zone.
The splendid foliage of the broad-leaved Musceae and Zingiberaceae, with their curious and brilliant flowers; and the elegant and varied forms of plants allied to Begonia and Melastoma, continually attract the attention in this region.
He says he has had a letter from you about Melastoma, but has not, he says, for three years seen a single melastomaceous plant! They are totally absent from the Pacific plains of tropical America, though so abundant on the Eastern plains. Poor fellow, he seems to be in a worse state than you are.
The birch, willow, alder, and walnut grow side by side with wild plantain, Erythrina, Wallichia palm, and gigantic bamboos: the Cedrela Toona, figs, Melastoma, Scitamineae, balsams, Pothos, peppers, and gigantic climbing vines, grow mixed with brambles, speedwell, Paris, forget-me-not, and nettles that sting like poisoned arrows.
On the hill of Quetepe, at the foot of the Malpighia cocollobaefolia, the leaves of which are extremely coriaceous, we gathered, among tufts of the Polygala montana, the first melastomas, especially that beautiful species described under the name of the Melastoma rufescens. As we advanced toward the south-west, the soil became dry and sandy.