Gardens of Madeira

It is not only the wild plants that interest the naturalists who visit Madeira. The plants cultivated in the quintas and gardens also deserve attention, whether for their variety, for the vigour of their growth or, finally, for the brilliance and splendour of their foliage or flowers. Alongside the plants of central Europe, many tropical species grow in the open air in Madeiran gardens, and this mingling of forms from the most varied latitudes makes a strange impression on the educated visitor who travels round this island for the first time to admire its natural beauties. The floras of the most varied zones of the globe have representatives here. Only the breadfruit tree, the cavaleiro, the cashew tree, the baobab and a few other species do not grow in Madeira’s climate, certainly because they do not find here the amount of heat they need to pass through all the phases of their growth.

In every backyard in Funchal there are always a few plots of ground set aside for growing flowers, and few people in the city do not own at least a few pots of ornamental plants, to which they devote the greatest care. In the countryside the same inclination can be seen to adorn the surroundings of houses with lovely and varied plants. Among them the naturalist recognises various forms that, in more northerly latitudes, can survive only in greenhouses or under shelters, things that are almost unknown here.

In almost all the small country gardens of Madeira one finds fuchsias, martírios, carnations (craveiros), urze-de-cheiro, malvas (Pelargonium), maravilhas, goivos, saudades-de-inverno, não-me-deixes, losna, alfinetes-de-senhora, the dahlia, cuidados, pampilios, mãozinhas-de-nossa-senhora, madre-silva, saudade, bôca-de-peixe, manjericão, alecrim, salva, rosmaninho, pessegueiro-inglês or verbena, erva-gigante, amores-perfeitos, lírios, beladonas, açucenas, coroa-de-henrique, junquilos, esparto and alegra-campo (see those entries), amores-de-rapazes (Mesembrianthemum conspicuum), amores-escondidos (Grazania rigens), Lobelia Erinus, Vinca rosea, Epiphyllum truncatum, etc. These species, more or less ornamental, cannot, however, rival either in brilliance or in magnificence certain forms that fill the island’s quintas and give them a distinctive character.

The Quinta Vigia, the Quinta do Deão, the Jardim Municipal and the garden of the Princess Maria Amélia Hospice (Hospício da Princesa Dona Maria Amélia) are the grounds within Funchal most notable for the luxuriance and variety of their trees. Here one sees fine specimens of the flora of many latitudes of the globe, alongside native types with tough, evergreen foliage. Liriodendron tulipiferum, Bombax ceiba, Astrapaea Wallichii, Mammea americana, Euphoria Lit-chi, Pachira aquatica, Spondias lutea, Podocarpus neriifolius and Taxodium distichum are trees growing in the Quinta Vigia. In the nearby gardens of the Princess Maria Amélia Hospice, meanwhile, the woody species include, among others, Pittosporum Tobira, P. eigenioides, Brachychiton populneum, Erythrina senegalensis, E. poianthes, E. Caffra, Schotia brachyata, Acacia Julibrissin, Aleurites triloba and Gingko biloba. Crescentia cucurbitina is one of the chief ornaments of the Quinta do Deão, while in the Jardim Municipal the principal adornment consists of the palms, prominent among them Phoenix canariensis, together with Pandanus odoratissimus and Dammara australis.

With the exception of three or four, the trees listed above are quite rare on the island. Among the common ones, the following seem to us worth mentioning: the magnolia, the incense tree, various acacias, the cherry laurel, the Indian pepper tree (Schinus), the louro-régio, the privet, the cevadilha, the jacaranda, the duranta, the camphor tree, the cinnamon tree, the oak, the plane, the nettle tree (Celtis), the Indian fig, the cedar of Goa and the araucaria. These trees, together with the native barbusano, til (Ocotea foetens, Madeiran laurel), Madeira mahogany (vinhático, Persea indica) and dragon tree, and various exotic shrubs, among which we shall note the camellia, the cardiais (Hibiscus), the manhã-de-páscoa, the angel’s trumpet and various roses and fuchsias, are the principal representatives of the woody flora of Madeiran quintas (country estates) and gardens.

The camellia, although cultivated in Funchal, does not reach its full development here. The same is true of Kalmia, Rhododendron arboreum X ponticum, Prunus lauro-cerasus, Viburnum Opulus, Syringa vulgaris, Ribes Grossularia, R. rubra and Betula Alba: they thrive in the gardens of Camacha, but often languish and die at altitudes below 400 or 500 metres. Madeira mahogany, a native tree, grows poorly below 150 or 200 metres.

Covering the walls and railings of the quintas and gardens of Funchal are numerous plants, such as Ampelopsis, Quisqualis indica, Tacsonia manicata, Wistaria sinensis, the Allamandas, the Bignonias (see that entry), Stephanotis floribunda (jasmim-do-cabo), Cobaea scandens, Plumbago capensis, Jasminum grandiflorum, Thunbergia Harrisii, Solandra macrantha, Lantana Camara, Bougainvillea spectabilis, Ficus stipulata and Asparagus Lowei (growing wild). Meanwhile, in the flower beds, which often take up a good part of these same gardens, one sees, mixed with the shrubs we mentioned earlier, coleuses, chrysanthemums, pelargoniums, gladioli, bamboos, Lathyrus odoratus, Russelia juncea, Salvia eriocalyx, Libonia floribunda, Cyrthanthera Pohliana, Zinnia elegans, Heliotropium peruvianum, Acalipha musaica, Iresine Verschaffelti, Dichorisandra thyrsiflora, Iris biflora, Canna indica (conteira), Globba nutans (flor-de-espírito), Imantophyllum miniatum, Crinum Moorei, C. Amabile and various other plants besides. Lovely azaleas and begonias, as well as the large Farfugium, orchids of the genera Sobralea, Stanhopea and Cypripedium, some palms and numerous native and exotic ferns are grown in pots and tubs to adorn the gardens and the entrances of houses.

Madeira has no gardens that can rival certain gardens of southern Europe or of the island of São Miguel, in the Azores, in extent or in the richness of their flora. There is, however, in these enclosures of our island a character so peculiar, born both of the varied aspects of its vegetation and of the way in which the life of nature manifests itself there, that the foreigner who visits them always finds a great deal to admire and to learn, especially if he is endowed with the spirit of observation that the study of the natural sciences imparts. Whatever the season of his visit, he always encounters a multitude of plants in the full vigour of their growth. This cannot fail to make a vivid impression on him, for it reveals that this island enjoys a constant spring, unknown in more northerly countries.

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Extraordinarily delightful and magnificent,’ says Commodore Bernhard von Wüllerstorf-Urbair, commander of the Austrian frigate Novara, ‘is the first impression that the sight of Funchal makes on the traveller, with the prospect of its gardens and flowers and the opulent vegetation that garlands and crowns the hills rising from the shore. There is not, it is true, the wild majesty or the colossal forms of vegetation proper to tropical countries. One senses there the features of an island of southern Italy rather than the splendours of an equatorial landscape. Yet there unfolds before the observer’s eyes so pleasing a picture, in which the life of nature appears in such rich variety and beauty, that the most inventive imagination could conceive nothing more lovely and enchanting. The most beautiful plants of the temperate and subtropical zones delight the eye there in their full development, while some of the finest representatives of the tropical flora also appear in the luxuriant splendour of this marvellous vegetation, which a German naturalist recently compared to the fabled hanging gardens of Semiramis.

The passages we have transcribed, elegantly translated by Latino Coelho, express the admiration and delight of a man of science contemplating the luxuriant vegetation of our island for the first time. Other travellers speak as the Austrian scholar does, and their writings show no disagreement in how they judge the appearance and richness of the flora of Madeira’s quintas and gardens.