Note 35 — PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

p. 30.—“From the rough bark of Crescentias and Gustavia.”

In the Crescentia cujete (the Tutuma or Calabash-tree, whose large fruit-shells are so useful to the natives for household purposes),—in the Cynometra, the Theobroma (the Cacao-tree), and the Perigara (the Gustavia of Linnæus),—the delicate flowers break through the half carbonized bark. When children eat the fruit of the Pirigara speciosa (the Chupo), their whole body becomes tinged with yellow; it is a jaundice, which lasts from 24 to 36 hours, and then disappears without the use of medicine.

I have never forgotten the impression which I received of the luxuriant power of vegetation in the tropical world, when on entering a Cacao plantation (Caca hual), in the Valles de Aragua, after a damp night, I saw for the first time large blossoms springing from a root of the Theobroma deeply imbedded in black earth. It was one of the most instantaneous manifestations of the activity of the vegetative organic forces. Northern nations speak of the “awakening of Nature at the first breath of the mild air of spring.” Such an expression is singularly contrasted with the imagination of the Stagirite, who recognised in plants forms which “lie buried in a tranquil slumber that knows no waking, free from the desires which impel to spontaneous motion.” (Aristot. de generat. Animal. V. i. p. 778, and de somno et vigil. cap. 1, p. 455, Bekker.)