The scarlet cups of the trumpet-vine (_bignonia_), the white starlike blossoms of the cypress-creeper, and the pink flowers of the wild althea or cotton-rose (_hibiscus grandiflora_), all blended their colours, inviting the large painted butterflies and ruby-throated humming birds that played among their silken corollas.

As if in contrast with these bright spots in the landscape, there were others that looked dark and gloomy.

You could see through long vistas in the forest, where the trees grew out of green slimy water.

Here there was no underwood, either of cane or palmettoes.

The black trunks of the cypresses rose branchless for nearly an hundred feet, and from their spreading limbs drooped the grey weeping moss.