76 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



of a flowery meadow or scented wood with which the plant 

 with pleasing name can harmonize. It may be some far back 

 reminiscence is bound up with the pretty name, or we have 

 read a vivid description in a book long ago. Thus idealized, one 

 shrinks from approaching it with critical eye, from examining 

 it with knife and microscope, and from classifying and de- 

 scribing it in the dry language of the specialist. I am think- 

 ing here specially of the word 'Liane.'" He then proceeds 

 to describe in his ow-n inimitable manner, a scene in an equa- 

 torial forest where lianes are a prominent feature. 



In such a dense tropical forest, where constant rainfall 

 alternating with powerful sunlight makes vegetation thrive to 

 an extent unknown to us, plants in indescribible confusion are 

 piled up, interwoven and twisted. The enormous trees rise 

 like pillars, while between them swing living ropes, or are 

 stretched bridges of verdure. These lianes are at times so 

 interlaced as to make forest or jungle impenetrable. Green 

 draperies, carpets and curtains, often ablaze with flowers, are 

 the rule, but in tropical w^oods it is noticed that the blossom- 

 ing occurs well aloft, and it is there that the gorgeous butter- 

 flies and moths, and the transcendent humming-birds, like 

 living gems fly from flower to flower. Here, too, such creat- 

 ures are more imitative of plants or of each other, than they 

 generally are with us. One may choose an exquisite butterfly, 

 and be almost upon it, when it disappears, and the hunter 

 sees but a dry leaf. If he is led to watch the leaf, suddenly it 

 is again an insect. 



A passing breeze sets the lianes swaying and forming 

 swings or hammocks for Ariel or Titania. "In other places 

 they stretch in luxuriant festoons from bough to bough and 

 from tree to tree * * * * there are even actual arcades with 

 pointed and rounded arches. Isolated tree-trunks are trans- 

 formed into emerald pillars by the crossing of woven lianes, 

 or more frequently become the center of green pyramids over 



