David Attenborough writes of his very first experience setting foot in the tropics.......... Stepping out into the heat and humidity of a West African afternoon was like entering a heated sauna. The hedge beside the ramshackle airport was bright with the scarlet trumpets of hibiscus. Sunbirds whizzed from one to another, hovering in front of each to sip nectar, their chests flashing iridescent colours, green, purple and red. Among them I suddenly spotted, clinging to the branch but rigidly immobile, a bright green chameleon. As I took a step towards it to get a closer look, my foot trod on the grassy verge and the leaves, to my astonishment, suddenly hinged back to lie alongside the main stems. It was sensitive mimosa. All in all that little strip of ordinary hedge was a revelation of
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