Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1884 — A Gardes in Para. [ARTICLE]

A Gardes in Para.

* It is the middle of November, warm, bright, with a cool, fresh breeze; the time, 8 o’clock in the morning; for we are not where November is a cold, gray month, but under the sunny skies of the equator. On our way to a friend’s garden we take the long street bordered with tall Royal Palms (Oreodoxa regina), wind along the crumbling walls of an old convent, which are a mass of White Jasmine, Cypress Vine, and Morning Glories, and soon oome into the great theater square, on the four sides of which are great Mango trees all full of green fruit A ten minutes’ walk brings us to the garden, above the tall fence of which tower many orange trees full of fruit and flowers, which per fn me the air delightfully. Entering through a tall gate, over which twine great Orange Trumpet Flowers, we see before us an avenue planted on either side with oranges, mangoes, and many other trees, the end of the vista being a great clump of the beautiful Peach Palm. We are lost in admiration at the variety and beauty which surrounds us. Caladiums, with bright white and red variegated foliage, cover the ground; clumps of Amaryllis fulgida are full of showy flowers, creepers twine over and hang in luxuriant festoons from the trees, and a very pretty parasite with white fragrant flowers, not unlike those of a Madeira Vine, is very common, so much so as to be an evil, as it is death to the branch upon which it establishes itself. On one side is an arbor some 100 feet long, covered with creepers among which Passion Flowers of many hues predominate, and on the posts and rafters of which are growing many common Orchids such as Stanhopeas, Oncidiums, Gorgoras and Epidendrums. On some of the trees near by are immense Tillandsias, some larger round than a bushel basket, from which hang great spikes of flowers with rosy or scarlet bracts. Meyenia erecta is a large bush covered with purple, yellowthroated flowers and Cape Jasmines that are large enough to sit under. Allamandas are heavy with trusses of golden bloom, and the beautiful Thunbergia lancifolia covering a great wall is a sheet of great lavender blue flowers. Guavas of several kinds were in full bloom and 'fruit; Sapodillas (Lucuma) were covered with a delicious fruit in size and in color somewhat reembling Russet apples, Jaca, and • Beseba, all species of Custard apple, bore both fruit and flowers. But what greatly interested us was the variety of oranges. The trees were heavy with fruit; the navel orange of Bahia, so called, from the protuberance at the apex, and which has no seeds; it is very large and the most delicious of oranges. The Mandarin, the skin of which separates so readily from the pulp; the lied Tungerine, many varieties of the common sweet orange which differ greatly in size and flavor, and the pretty little orange of Cameta, as large as a good-sized plum, growing in such clusters as to make the tree show more fruit than leaves, and of delicious sweetness. There were also the large sweet kind and many small, sour kinds, with lemons and shaddocks. The breadfruit trees are always conspicuous from their large, deep-cut foliage, and the two varieties, that of which the fruit has seeds and that without, bear great fruits nearly as large as a child’s head. There were many bushes bearing fruit which we did not know—eight-sided, flattish, bright red or black, and used for preserves ; the seed came from Bahia. The vflower is white, somewhat resembling a Myrtle; at first we thought it an Euqenia, but it is evidently not of the Myrtle family. Of Palms there were many; the graceful Assie; the Maracaja, with its tall crown of foliage; the cocoanut, with great clusters of fruit; and the huge fan, leafod MiritL Pineapples grow in great masses, and the space reserved for a future home was a luxuriant sweet potato patch. Indeed, to tell all we saw would exceed our limits. The pleasant thought was that all this luxuriance goes on from month to month, fears no winter’s chill, and with the lapse of years increases in beauty, and this in a climate probably as healthy as any in the world. We returned to our house laden with specimens of fruits and flowers, and as we write our room is a horticultural exhibition in miniature. We should add that the owner of the garden told us that five years ago there was not a tree on the ■place.—Floral World.