Tropical Gardens: The Myth and the Reality

The myth of the ‘tropical garden’ probably originated with historical accounts of tropical rainforest. Charles Darwin, in 1822, described his first encounter with tropical rainforest thus: ‘Delight … is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest … the beauty of the flowers, the glossy green of the foliage, but above all the general luxuriance of the vegetation, filled me with admiration …’. About fifty years later, Isabella Bird wrote to her sister of her first impressions of Honolulu: ‘And beyond the reef and beyond the blue, nestling among cocoanut trees and bananas, umbrella trees and breadfruits, oranges, mangoes, hibiscus, algarroba [carob (Ceratonia siliqua)] and passion-flowers, almost hidden in the deep, dense greenery, was Honolulu’. These images of lushness, luxuriance, colour, warmth and the exotic carry on into the popular modern perception of the ‘tropical garden’.