A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



from its edge one obtains a magnificent view of the plain of Santos 

 lying far below, its green floor traversed by many watercourses, 

 while beyond it lies the blue ocean. 



On the very threshold of the forest the imposing vivid red in- 

 florescence of the Bishop's Heliconia rises out of a foliage not unlike 

 that of the banana, but on a smaller scale. The delicate fan-like 

 fronds of the Gleichenia cover the ground with a living carpet, and 

 from this a Lycopodium rises like a fresh green fir-tree. Where 

 the grass ends at the edge of the forest a sky-blue iris looks at us 

 with friendly eyes, and a white Polygala glimmers in the distance 

 (Plate ii). 



Now we enter the forest, which spreads away over the mountains. 

 On the ridges the trees are of middling stature, gnarled, and with 

 heavy branches ; in the valleys, which are sheltered from the wind, 

 their trunks grow to a considerable height, and the jungle becomes 

 a timber-forest; cool, plashing streams, roofed over with ferns, 

 flow through these valleys, and tiny frogs call from under the fronds. 

 In the distance a Tovaca pipes its rising series of chromatic notes ; 

 a small woodpecker, not unlike an Oriole, is clinging to yonder tree, 

 and now we hear the resonant voice of the black Gurundi with its 

 blood-red cap. 



The trunks of the trees are green with moss, and often half-rotten ; 

 little round balls of the lichen-like "Greybeard" (Tillandria) perch 

 upon them (Fig. 7) and long green branching cacti hang half-way 

 up the trunks ; on all sides there is a tangle of bamboos and lianas, 

 many of the latter bedecked with flowers, while orchids and 

 Bromelias often cover the boughs so closely as to clothe them like a 

 fleece. They grow, too, on the trunks wherever the smallest chink 

 or protuberance offers them a natural seat. 



Here a stream leads down into a wooded valley, where trees with 

 mighty trunks tower into the air. On the boughs, high and low, sit 

 Bromelias (Plates 18, 27, 28). In some of these the rosette of leaves 

 has a red centre; others are surrounded by great red trumpet- 

 flowers, while some send up spires of red blossom, which often 

 have the shape and colour of red corals. Since almost every tree is 

 of a different species, the forest is decked with an endless variety 

 of leaves of every shape and size. Like long cables the lianas hang 

 from the tallest tree-tops, and their perpendicular lines are inter- 

 rupted by the bright green lacework of the tree-ferns, while here 

 and there a palmetto shoots upwards, tall and slender as a taper 

 (Plate 1 3) ; overhead, sliimmering in the sunlight, the gracefully- 



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