THE VIRGIN FOREST 



Wallace was one of the first travellers to remark that in Europe 

 Nature gives an impression of greater luxuriance than in the tropics, 

 and other travellers have pointed out that even the greatest splen- 

 dour of the tropics pales in comparison with that of an old quarry 

 full of blossoming hawthorn and honeysuckle, or a woodland 

 clearing gay with spring flowers. But while we do not wish to 

 exaggerate the splendour of the tropical landscape, we must not 

 fall into the contrary error. All in Nature is beautiful. It is beautiful 

 because it is in harmony with the landscape from which it has 

 evolved. Our woodlands would seem out of place at the Equator; 

 I saw in Ceylon how all attempts to make an English park in the 

 tropics, or a Mediterranean landscape of pines and cypresses in the 

 hills, were invariably unsuccessful. To make such attempts is indeed 

 to slight the powers of Creation, so far above all human effort and 

 all attempted "improvements." In an alien landscape we can do 

 nothing better than to make ourselves at home in it. Then its beauty 

 should and will win our hearts. 



And there is, of course, a tropical luxuriance ; but it finds expres- 

 sion otherwise than in Europe ; that is, in the production, not of a 

 wealth of lush foliage, but of great masses of timber. In the tropics 

 the plants are able to grow without intermission, whereas in Europe 

 those which hope to survive the winter must fight a hard battle with 

 frost and ice and snow. And in order to fight this battle our trees 

 have had to adopt quite a number of protective devices. They cover 

 their buds with scaly leaves, and wrap them in hair, or resin, or 

 gum. The leaves are discarded in autumn, and then the tree more 

 readily endures the gales of winter. But by far the greater number 

 of our plants have never attempted to fight this battle ; they have 

 from the first declined to abide our winter. They surrender their 

 stems and leaves, and hibernate in the warm earth, in the form of 

 seeds or root-stocks. This means, of course, that every year they 

 have to begin all over again ; they are, therefore, unable to grow to 

 any great height, and remain herbaceous. 



In the tropics, as the botanist Haberlandt has remarked, arbores- 

 cent or tree-like growth, and the reinforcement of the continually 

 growing stem by the formation of wood, is entirely natural. Germany, 

 for example, has only 36 native trees; Ceylon has some 1,500, and 

 Brazil has many times this number. Families of plants which in 

 Europe produce only herbaceous growths give rise to great trees 

 in the tropics. For example, in Europe we know the Milkworts or 

 Spurges (Euphorbiaceae) only as small plants, whose stalks, if 



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