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200 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. ciiap. xi. wisdom and goodness, greatly increased our enjoyment of the scenery. After proceeding about a couple of hours, and passing Marovata and Batrasina, two villages on our right, standing on mounds of sandstone, and the straggling village of Maro- mandia, stretching along the top of the high land on our left, we left the broad river, and entered a narrow creek between high banks of clay. Several birds here attracted my notice, among them a pretty little purple-coloured kingfisher. But my attention was chiefly arrested by the flowers on the banks of the narrow stream, amongst them a plant which looked like a variety of herbaceous hibiscus, with bright yellow flowers, and gigantic arum, A. costatum, or A. colocasia, which grew by the edge of the water to the height of ten or twelve feet, and so near that I could reach them on both sides as we passed along. But the most magnificent objects were the fine trees of Astrapcea Wallichii, or viscosa. The name of this Malagasy plant was derived from the word for lightning, on account of the brilliancy of its flowers; and Sir Joseph Paxton and Dr. Lindley have thus spoken of A. Wallichii: — “ One of the finest plants ever introduced. And when loaded with its magnificent flowers, we think nothing can exceed its gran deur.”* I had seen a good sized plant growing freely at Mauritius, but here it was in its native home, luxuriating on the banks of the stream, its trunk a foot in diameter, its broad leaved branches stretching over the water, and its large, pink, globular, composite flowers, three or four inches in diameter, suspended at the end of a fine down-covered stalk, nine inches or a foot in length. These hanging by hundreds along the course of the stream, surpassed anything of the kind I had seen, or could possibly have imagined. I * Paxton’s Botanical Dictionary, p. 33.