He found the sweet olive, of refined leaf
and minute axillary flowers yielding their ravishing tonic odor with the
reserve of the violet; the pittosporum; the box; the myrtle; the
camphor-tree with its neat foliage answering fragrantly the grasp of the
hand. The dark camellia was there, as broad and tall as a lilac-bush,
its firm, glossy leaves of the deepest green and its splendid red
flowers covering it from tip to sod, one specimen showing by count a
thousand blossoms open at once and the sod beneath innumerably starred
with others already fallen. The night jasmine, in full green, was not
yet in blossom but it was visibly thinking of the spring. The Chinese
privet, of twenty feet stature, in perennial leaf, was saving its
flowers for May. The sea-green oleander, fifteen feet high and wide (see
extreme left foreground, page 176), drooped to the sward on four sides
but hoarded its floral cascade for June. The evergreen loquat (locally
miscalled the mespilus plum) was already faltering into bloom; also the
orange, with its flower-buds among its polished leaves, whitening for
their own wedding; while high over them towered the date and other
palms, spired the cedar and arborvitae, and with majestic infrequency,
where grounds were ample, spread the lofty green, scintillating boughs
of the magnolia grandiflora (see left foregrounds on pages 174, 182
and 184), the giant, winter-bare pecan and the wide, mossy arms of the
vast live-oak.
Pages:
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145