The Florida agriculturist., 1907-05-15
NOTES ON JAMAICA, w. L.
Some of the Trees and Plants.
Continued from last week.)

VASH was Ill JdLIdlCd-dDOuL IIllS
time OF year-among the big trees in
good bloom were famboyant, mahoes,
sesbania, bombax, lonchocarpus and
spathodia. Principal among the
shrubs in flower in gardens were
poinsettias red and white, plumbago,
red, blue and white; the fragrant muir
rya, yellow tecoma, orange and buff
ixoras. variegated bauhinias, purple
tinnea, purple and white meyenias, red
achan1a, peach, pink and scarlet hi
discus, red and white oleanders, fra
grant white jasmines, white, pink
tinged and yellowish frangipani, the
Cape SNOWFALL (Dombeya natalensis)
day and night blooming cestrum, also
the reddish ones, the delicious white
tabernaemOntana, hesh-colored justi-
clas and good many others. At the
same time the paucity of variety of
tropical Towering shrubs in gardens
In general surprised me.
A good deal is made of variegated
plants, notably crotons; they are per-
manent garden shrubbery, but often
their disposition and condition were
painful. Many kinds of the fern and
lacyleaved arallas are used and the
bronze and dark red leaved dracaenas
occasionally appear. Execaria, pretty
plant whose leaves are green above
and red beneath, is not uncommon
and its foliage glistens in the sun.
The rosy-leaved phyllanthus finds a
place with crotons, but I have seen it
far finer in Florida than anywhere
here. And hedges are made of the
caricature plant. The people call it
"notwo- alike" referring to it's leaves
The variegated sarlchezia was not in
frequent. Among other hedge plants
| might mention crotons, aralias, hi
discus, phyllanthus, cactus and pin
guin. The cactus used is Swartz's
cereus, an "organ" cactus not unlike
the c. emarginatus, so much used
for fencing in Mexico. Tops are top
ped off and stuck in the ground
straight up and close together, and
there they root, making an impene-
trable barrier. But the ugliest of all
he'd ge plants is the pinguin, or as the
natives call it "pingwing." It is a
big, long-leaved, hook-spined bronze
liad-a waste of ground and a nest
for weeds.
Speaking of cactus reminds me that
the Turk's-Cap cactus is found in
Jamaica, but It is rare. A slender
rhipsalis grows on the trees. An
other succulent common there, but
not common in cultivation, is Agave
Morrisii, which is quite like our or
dinary century plant. Oh what mag
on the south sides of this island.
s u.
Some Orchids Seen.
Epiphytal air plants abound on
some OF the trees, but these are most
ly tillandsias and other bromeliads.
No snowy orchids are wild on the
island. Epidendrum fragrans is very
plentiful On calabash trees, and other
vigorous snowy whitish lowered
sorts make large clumps in the woods.
Onc1dlum lur1dum on trees, on rocky
ground and on stone walls along the
roadsides in some places were very
abundant, especially at 1000 to 1000
feet elevation. On a comparatively
level stretch of open land on the
Blue Mountains, say about 5000 or
1000 feet elevation, Phajus grandi-
folius had become naturalized, no
doubt escaped from cultivation and
increased from seed. At the Hope
gardens there is a collection of exotic
orchids.
A Paradise for Ferns.
Jamaica is paradise for ferns, and
there they occur in hundreds of spe-
cies from forests Of tall tree ferns
to the tiniest pellucid jewels of flmy
ferns. Maidenhair ferns-Adiantum
tenerum prevailing g-are very plenti-
full, so too are the powdery gymno-