A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



In an old canoe, punted with long poles by two mulattoes, I 

 navigated its dark waters. The tops of the great trees met far over- 

 head ; between was a tangle of hanging creepers, which met above 

 the stream, forming a vaulted roof, the leaves, when the sun struck 

 them, glittering with a light green or silver fire. The mangrove has 

 stiff leaves with thick-walled veins and capillaries, in order that 

 the moisture should not evaporate too quickly. If the evaporation 

 were too rapid too much salt water would be drawn up to replace 

 the moisture lost, and an excess of salt would injure the foliage. 



With their mighty trunks the trees stood high on their roots as 

 though on a foundation of piles, under which the black water lost 

 itself in the darkness. The roots sprang from the trunk in vigorous 

 curves, sometimes growing from the foot of the tree and sometimes 

 half-way up the stem, so that they had to grow a long way before 

 they could dip into the water. 



The wood seemed to rest on elastic springs; close at hand one 

 was astonished by the monumental solemnity of all this sylvan 

 architecture, but at a distance the pile-work of the roots had the 

 strange appearance of an open, grill-like wall beneath the forest. 

 The roots were yellow beneath the sharply-defined horizontal line 

 which marked the level of high water; above this the living 

 scaffolding was grey, and in the sunlight which filtered through 

 the foliage, here outlining a root or bough and there flooding one 

 with light, the surprising solidity and the delicate ramifications of 

 the structure were revealed. For on the mangrove, as on most of 

 the trees of the tropics, the large, thick, oval, pale-green leaves are 

 so sparsely distributed that the architecture of the tree is visible 

 down to its slenderest twig. 



Slowly the canoe glided forward. Here and there the leaves of 

 water-lilies floated on the surface like green plates; and where the 

 pile-work of the mangroves receded, leaving an open creek, the 

 leaves of the "Water-foot" grew in a dense throng. Wherever I found 

 this aquatic plant, which is very common in Brazil, I rejoiced to 

 see its light-blue and whitish spires of blossom. But the leaf-stalks 

 of the stout leaves, lifted to the surface by bladders, were equally 

 fascinating. For not only do these structures function as floats to 

 support the leaves, but the air which they contain in their loosely- 

 woven tissues is of service to those parts of the plant which are 

 buried in the ooze, for the plants need air to breathe, and mud and 

 slime contain less air than clear water. 



On the bank stood a brown heron. Through the bush the capy- 



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