Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 May 1884 — Flowers in the Tropics. [ARTICLE]

Flowers in the Tropics.

There can be no greater mistake than to assume that the flowers of the tropical forests are chiefly odorless, and that tropical birds have no song. It is only necessary to read Humboldt, Waterton, and other great travelers, to have this impression removed. If one live for months in those southern forests, as the writer has done, he will find that the air is overladen with the perfume es flowers, and frequently vocal with the song of birds. “A light breeze from the forest,” writes one who has climbed to the Mexican table-land, “often conveys a perfect cloud of most delicious odors to the wanderer.” Odors of orange, lime and citron, tuberoses, violets, and magnolias, permeate the air, especially in the gardens of the coast and the temperte region. Almost the first greeting extended to Cortez, when he entered the walled city of Campoalla, was accompanied with a present of flowers, and the Mexican nobles always carried nosegays in which they took great delight. In the religious ceremonies of the Mexicans, even in the bloody rites of the Aztecs, flowers played an important part Flowers and fruit were the offerings made in the worship taught by the culture-hero, Quetzalcoatt. The Spanish priests, in their anxiety to secure converts, in the years succeeding the conquest, allowed the Indians to retain many of their ancient forms of worship, least objectionable of which was the expression of their adoration through the medium of flowers. It is related that long after the overthrow of the Aztec war god, the terrible Huitzilopochtli, the Indians would visit him by stealth and decorate his prostrate form with garlands of flowers. The markets of Mexico are filled with flowers. They bloom here all the year round; from the high plains of Tlascala to the borders of the sea may be traced that blossoming of the beautiful that pervades all nature, whether the country be visited in January or in June, in August, or December. This love for flowers, this redeeming trait of the Aztec character, has survived oppression of three hundred years—three centuries of Spanish taskmasters have failed to efface it. The Aztecs had feasts of flowers, as well as the ancients of Europe and the East, and for every plant they had a name, in which its peculiar quality or virtue was expressed. The Mexican artists painted them so accurately that these pictures served the learned Hernandez in the formation of his great work on the flora of Mexico, a work that has stood the criticisms of all writers to the present day. Bo desirous were the Mexican rulers to possess all the rare and beautiful plants in their kingdom, that they formed gairdens and conservatories, and made long expeditions in search of them. A single flower was the cause of war between Montezuma andMalinally, lord of the Miztecs, in 1507, if we may believe the Aztec traditions. Among the many flowers which embellish the meads and adorn the gardens of Mexico, there is one which was considered sacred by the Aztecs, and is to-day one of the most curiously shaped in the world. It is called the Macphalxochitl, or “hand flower.” It is of the shape of a bird’s foot, or the hand of a monkey, and is, or was recently, still shown in the botanic garden of Mexico as a great curiosity.— Fred A. Ober, in Good Cheer.