St Lucia is the second-largest of the Windward Islands. It has some of the finest mountain scenery in the West Indies, rich with tropical vegetation. Orchids and exotic plants of the genus anthurium grow wild in the rainforests and the roadsides are covered with many colourful tropical flowers.
Flamboyant trees spread shade and blossom everywhere.
Indigenous wildlife includes a species of ground lizard unique to St Lucia, and the agouti and the manicou, two rodents, common throughout the island. The Amazon versicolor parrot is another, though more elusive, inhabitant of the deep interior rainforest. Most spectacular are Gros Piton and Petit Piton, ancient, volcanic forest-covered cones which rise out of the sea on the west coast. The mountains are intersected by short rivers which in some areas form broad fertile valleys. The island has excellent beaches and is surrounded by a clear, warm sea.