NATURE'S SKIFFS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2425, 5 September 1900, Page 71

NATURE'S SKIFFS.

By a Banker. ' Amongst the most striking and attractive of all the many adornments with which kind Nature has so lavishly decorated this fair earth, the one which by fai excels all others of its kind in magnificence and m beauty is that wonderful 'aquatic plant which, until the present century, appears to have been unknown and unseen by civilised man — the Victoria regia. The native^ home of this extraordinary waterr tree is that little explored but beautiful portion of the world-empire of Great Britain — British Guiana, whose forest-begirt rivers present a picture of such startling and luxuriant baauty. Here, perhaps, is a giant fan-palm, tne frond-sockets right up the trunk being concealed in one glowing blaze of colour; for on one ■& brilliant mauve Lelia, on another a golden and orange Odontoglossum, or feathery Dendrobium, or some other varieties of gorgeous orchids have become e&tnblished; while from the upper portion may depend a festoon of the climbing Tacsonia, covered with its pendent scarlet passior flowers, 3ach hanging as from a long thread, the bine stretching across to othei tall trees and forming arches blazing in a glory of vermilion and scarlet and green. And here is, perhaps, a clump of the coral tree, decorated with long spikes of deep red strangely-shaped flowers resembling lobsters' claws, which appear even more beautiful from tb.2 contrast caused by_ the deep olive-green hue

of its shining, waxy leafage ; here a sort of big"nonia covered with huge scarlet trumpet flowers, which in company with golden allamanclas, purple cobceas, a climber like the gorgeous glory pea, with ruany another" luxuriant beauty, appear to bind together great trees with a brilliant many-hued network, creating an almost impenetrable barrier to the virgin forest in the back-ground ;^»while to enhance even this bewildering pageant of chromatic harmony, numerous gieat birds, macaws and others, painted in all manner of vivid hues of emerald green, scarlet, azure, and gold, are noisily disporting themselves amongst the fronds and branches.

But even more wonderful than all this glittering display of colour is the great water lily whose enormous orbicular leaves and gigantic flowers are spread out on the water over an area of perhaps an acre or more. Each leaf is a perfect circle, 18ft or even 20ft in circumference, with turned-up brim, about sin high, thus forming a perfect boat, the buoyancy of which is such that it will support even a man with ease. The upper side oi this natural skiff is a vivid green, the lower, a bright scarlet. The handsome gigantic flower is composed of several hundred great petals, varying in coloui: from white to a beautiful ro3e-pink. Even in otir botanical gardens this handsome plaut is a -most striking object, but in its native habitat it is indeed "'a thing of beaivfcy." It. is related that the discoverer of this monster water plant, Haenke, the great botanist, waa so overpowered- by its splendour and magnitude that he " fell on his knees and exprsssed aloud-his sense of the power and magnificence of the Creator in His works." And well he might, for although there be those who try to make uhemselves and others believe that all these v.iried beauties, together with everything existing upon eax-th — lions, v.orms, whales, oranges, eagles, man, everything possessing life — have developed by natural selection, without ihe guiding hand of any Creator, from one solitary germ of life, which by some unexplained cause had found its way to this earth; yet " they whose souls are lighted with wisdom from on high ' know the utter fallacy of these atheist theories; and are as certain as they can be of anything that He who created 'his fair raitb and all that is therein — if they conduct thejr ht'cs in accordance with the precepts and commands laid down in His Jaoly Word, the record on high against them being obliterated by the simple means therein indicated — will assure to them an inheritance infinitely surpassing anything this earth could offer, both in m pleasure, and in power.

The Chairman of the Roslyn Tramway Company informs us that the third electric car which the Company have ordered will cost £630.