192 THE PLANT WORLD. 



TROPICAL EPIPHYTES. 



By Mel T. Cook, Ph.D., 



Agricultural Sfatiuu, Santiago dc las Vegas. Cuba. 



The forests have always been, and probably always will be, 

 especially fascinating to mankind. In our earliest childhood 

 their mysterious depths have concealed the goblins and the 

 fairies, and the love for the first wild flowers of spring have led 

 us on and on until mystery after mystery was explored, but the 

 fascination not lessened. 



The early settlers of America clung tenaciously to the forests. 

 Where the soil would produce trees it would produce the desired 

 crops, and so the forests were sacrificed and the prairies left un- 

 touched for many years until chance demonstrated their im- 

 portance. Now we lament the wanton destruction of the forests 

 carried on by our forefathers in their fierce struggle with nature. 

 Now we are beginning to appreciate their importance, not only 

 for their commercial value but also for their general influences 

 upon the surrounding country, and for their great beauty. The 

 forests give special character to the country. The pine for- 

 ests of the north and south, the redwood forests of the Pacific 

 coast, the oak, maple, beech and hickory of the central states, 

 and the live oak forests of the gulf and Pacific states each 

 give specific characters to their respective localities. Who 

 has not admired the little spring beauties, dutchman's breeches, 

 and other delicate plants that are sheltered in the northern for- 

 ests, the trailing arbutus of the New England states, the pro- 

 fusion of liliaceous plants of the Pacific coast or the moss of the 

 southern states? 



And if we leave the bounds of our own country and go into 

 the tropics, there we find new and peculiar forests- each sheltering 

 its own host of smaller plants of various kinds. There we find 

 the massive trees covered with numerous epiphytes, chained 

 together in an almost impenetrable jungle by vines struggling 

 upward to the light. 



In Cuba, the oldest and the newest of the new world, we meet 



