Antigua and the Antiguans, Volume 2 (of 2): A full account of the colony and its inhabitants from the time of the Caribs to the present dayLanaghan, Mrs.
History
Antigua and the Antiguans, Volume 2 (of 2): A full account of the colony and its inhabitants from the time of the Caribs to the present day
Lanaghan, Mrs.
Antigua -- Description and travel; Antigua -- History
Cedars belong to the _juniperus_ tribe. There are two species in
Antigua, the white and the red. The white is a very beautiful
tree, clothed with a dark-green glossy foliage, from whence
spring flowers of a trumpet-like shape, and of the most delicate
pink or pearly white. It forms a very beautiful avenue to a
gentleman’s seat, as well as a road-side border; but the timber
is not of so much value as the red cedar, which is another most
lovely forest-tree, rising sometimes to from sixty to seventy
feet, and of proportionate circumference. The foliage is very
thick, the leaves in form like the English ash; the flowers
(which have not the beauty of its sister tree) are succeeded by
oval berries of a purplish colour. The wood of the cedar is too
well known to need much description. It is of a reddish colour
and of a fragrant smell, and is almost incorruptible, as no worms
will breed in it. It has been related that cedar-wood was found
in the temple of Apollo at Utica, full 2000 years old.
Silk-cotton Tree, _bombax seva,_ or _Ceiba,_ of the polyandria
order, class monodelphia, is one of the most beautiful
forest-trees of the western world, and a great ornament in tropic
scenery. The trunk rises smooth and straight as a column, to the
height of sixty or seventy feet, and of immense circumference. It
is said to have originally been brought from Africa to the West
Indies, where it now flourishes in splendid magnificence. The
leaves are broad, and of a glossy green, the flowers of a
delicate primrose, and campanulated; the corolla is quinquefid,
from whence rises the pointal, which afterwards turns to a pod of
about four or five inches in length, containing the seeds, and a
profusion of bright beautiful silk. From its extreme shortness,
it has been for a long time held as unfit for any use; but within
these last few years, it is discovered it can be manufactured
into hats. The East Indians use it for stuffings to their
ottomans, cushions, and sofas, on which they recline during the
heat of the day; but the West Indians, less effeminate and
luxurious, allow it to float about in its native copses unheeded,
except by the pretty little humming-bird, which sometimes builds
her fairy nest from its silky fabric.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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