BOTANICAL GARDEN AT BUITENZORG, JAVA. 587 



to insect visits — flowers of handsome colors and strange shapes. But 

 many orchids have small greenish or white flowers, and these are the 

 ones most common in the Buitenzorg garden. There is also a good 

 collection of species which have been ' planted/ not planted in the 

 ground, but simply tied to tree trunks. Here they get along very well 

 without drawing any water from the soil. There is plenty of moisture 

 in the air and these plants are provided with absorbing tissues to take 

 in what they need. 



Things grow on a large scale in the tropics. Many of our tiny 

 herbs at home have tropical relatives which are large trees. There 



India Rubbek Tree. 



are tree ferns, the tree-daisy and the tree-tomato. In our own part 

 of the world the sunflower is the largest plant of the composite family, 

 but in the tropics there are many shrubs and trees belonging to this 

 order of plants. Fruits of great size are common. A good example 

 is seen in the ' sausage tree/ the fruits of which are great sausage- 

 shaped structures two feet long, weighing many pounds. The jak tree 

 has a fruit which looks something like an enormous watermelon, except 

 for the roughened warty outer rind. The flowers, and hence the fruit, 

 are on old wood— not developed at the tips of young branches as are 

 the apples, peaches and other fruits familiar to us. Such production 

 of flowers and fruits on the older parts of the tree is known as c cauli- 



