Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/260



230 UP THE PARANA RIVER TO ROZARIO.

kinds — the useless Lloron^ introduced^ it is said^ by the Jesuits ; the Colorado or red_, which gives good timber ; the Mimbre or osier^ useful for withies ; and the white or in- digenous species^ which has congeners on the Amazons and the S. Francisco (Salix Humboldtiana). Their exposed roots caused the South American Pilot (i. 5_, 180) to discover '^impenetrable mangroves" in the delta of the Parana; but here the salt water does not, despite Commodore Jack Trunnion, extend; consequently there are no "forests of the sea." The largest growth — not very tall, for the wind, the great leveller, cuts them down — is that leguminous and papilionaceous erythrina, the Ceibo, which foreigners, mis- taking for Cebo, mistranslated " tallow-tree." At present it is a mere system of woody spikes, forming gigantic brooms ; in October or November it will be aflame with bright embers of bloom, and then it will be dressed in the burnished leaves that suggest the North American " fall." The Lianas, here called " Loconte," and in Chile " Boqui," appear like climbers upon hop-poles ; presently these creepers and air- plants will beautify old age and skeletons, and will turn death into life.

At another season we shall find all the brown grown green. Orchard follows orchard of apple, pear, quince, and the wild dm^azno or peach, which wants only grafting and training ; its tender pink blossoms contrast well with the black-green poplars, with the grey-green of the young- white willows, with the darker foliage of the older salix, with the leek green of the weeping willow, and with the metallic greens and burnished tints of the less known growths. There is the orange, fast returning to its original type ; despite the fade and somewhat bitter taste, the fruit is made into cooling drinks, and was at one time gathered like the peach for the Buenos Aires market. As the clearings in the higher levels and the smoke rising from the