350 Scientific Travellers. 



with. Suppose a tolerably large wide- spreading tree with naturally 

 rather rugged and picturesque branches, forming a canopy overhead 

 and a tolerably clear space below. On this tree were suspended a 

 multitude of large bunches of papilionaceous flowers, the product of 

 a climber which had enveloped the tree. At first I could not per- 

 ceive the mode in which the flowers were suspended, and I gazed 

 with astonishment, thinking that it was by no means impossible that 

 some of these unaccountable pendants would drop down upon me to 

 satisfy my curiosity. The flowers were like clusters of grapes of a 

 claret colour, and the elongated petiole from which they were sus- 

 pended varied from five to ten feet in length, without a vestige of a 

 leaf, bractea or scale upon it, resembling considerably in colour, size 

 and substance the appendages by which Stratiotes Aloides is moored 

 to the bottom of the water, when the plant floats on the surface 

 during the flowering season. So unnatural-like was the whole af- 

 fair, that it was really difficult to suppose that Nature had any hand 

 in it, for it more resembled the work of a parcel .of monkeys, who, 

 having culled the flowers, had amused themselves by suspending 

 them from the branches with pieces of packthread, 



" Another thing which struck me particularly during my ramble 

 was a beautiful fern ; it was seven or eight feet high with pecu- 

 liarly graceful fronds, resembling in some degree Attyrium Filix fce- 

 mina ; but its principal peculiarity to my unpractised eye was in 

 being densely covered on the rhachis with large aculei resembling 

 those on the rose-bush, and quite as penetrating*. 



" I think I have mentioned to you before a tree called trumpet 

 wood (Cecropici), very common in the bush, and which springs up 

 very rapidly in abandoned cane pieces. I had an opportunity of 

 inspecting it to better advantage lately when some trees were felled, 

 and I w r as surprised to find that the leaves at the summit bear a con- 

 siderable resemblance to a coarse umbelliferous plant, such as Hera- 

 cleum fiavescens (Sibericum, L.) ; and the tree is of such a soft spongy 

 texture in the young shoots, that if they were detached there would 

 be some difficulty in saying w T hether they belonged to a tree or a 

 herbaceous plant. The tree ranges from fifteen to forty feet high, 

 with a straight trunk, destitute of branches, until it ends in a crown 

 of large leaves. 



"As good an instance as I have seen of the rapidity of growth 

 here, is a silk cotton tree {Bombax Ceiba) in the ground attached to 

 the house where I am now living. It was planted fourteen years ago, 

 and now resembles in trunk, in limb, and in height, a huge oak of a 

 century. It is really a magnificent tree, and one of the largest and 

 finest to be seen about Georgetown ; and yet it seems but of yester- 

 day, when one looks back to the date when it was planted. The 

 trunk is of great girth at the base, owing to the roots being to some 

 extent superficial, and of an unwonted size. They have a peculiarly 

 flattened and compressed appearance, with their sharp edges pro- 

 jecting from half a foot to a foot above ground, and they extend to 

 an immense distance, threatening even to undermine the house, 

 * The fern is probably a species of Ilemitelia. — J. H. B. 



