Worms, at Rothschild, in Pusilawa[1]; but the want of any skilful manipulators to collect and prepare the leaves, renders it hopeless to attempt any experiment on a large scale, until assistance can be secured from China, to conduct the preparation.
[Footnote 1: The cultivation of tea was attempted by the Dutch, but without success.] Still ascending, at an elevation of 6500 feet, as we approach the mountain plateau of Neuera-ellia, the dimensions of the trees again diminish, the stems and branches are covered with orchideae and mosses, and around them spring up herbaceous plants and balsams, with here and there broad expanses covered with _Acanthaceae_, whose seeds are the favourite food of the jungle fowl, which are always in perfection during the ripening of the Nilloo.[1] It is in these regions that the tree-ferns (_Alsophila gigantea_) rise from the damp hollows, and carry their gracefully plumed heads sometimes to the height of twenty feet.
[Footnote 1: There are said to be fourteen species of the Nilloo (_Strobilanthes_) in Ceylon.

They form a complete under-growth in the forest five or six feet in height, and sometimes extending for miles.
When in bloom, their red and blue flowers are a singularly beautiful feature in the landscape, and are eagerly searched by the honey bees.
Some species are said to flower only once in five, seven, or nine years; and after ripening their seed they die.

This is one reason assigned for the sudden appearance of the rats, which have been elsewhere alluded to (vol.i.p.

149, ii.p.

234) as invading the coffee estates, when deprived of their ordinary food by the decay of the nilloo.