B. Appendix B
South America, in the region between the tropics, produces
an incredible profusion of climbing plants, of which the flora of
the Antilles alone presents us with forty different species.
Among the most graceful of these shrubs is the passion-flower,
which, according to Descourtiz, grows with such luxuriance in the
Antilles, as to climb trees by means of the tendrils with which
it is provided, and form moving bowers of rich and elegant
festoons, decorated with blue and purple flowers, and fragrant
with perfume. The Mimosa scandens (Acacia a grandes gousses) is
a creeper of enormous and rapid growth, which climbs from tree to
tree, and sometimes covers more than half a league.
