Note 105 — IDEAS FOR A PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.
Henry G. (Henry George) Bohn translation
p. 230—“From the thick and rough bark of the Crescentiæ and Gustaviæ.”
In Crescentia Cujete (the Tutuma tree, whose large fruit-shells are so indispensable to the natives as household utensils), in Cynometra, the Cacao-tree (Theobroma), and the Perigara Gustavia (Linn.), the tender blossoms burst forth from the half-carbonized bark. When children eat the fruit of the Pirigara speciosa (the Chupo), their whole bodies become tinged with yellow; and this jaundice, after a continuance of from twenty-four to thirty-six hours, disappears without the use of medicine.
An indelible impression was produced on my mind by 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 the root of a Theobroma, deeply imbedded in the black soil. This is one of the most instantaneous manifestations of the activity of the vegetative force of organisation. Northern nations speak of “the awakening of Nature at the first genial breath of Spring;”—expressions that strongly contrast with the imaginative complaint of the Stagirite, who regarded vegetable forms as buried in a “still sleep, from which there is no awakening, and free from the desires that excite to spontaneous motion.”[RB]