A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



The mighty trunks of the tropical forest trees need a firm anchorage, 

 and according to their species they seek to obtain this anchorage 

 either by sending a tap-root deep into the ground, or by increasing 

 the area of the supporting surface by means of far-extended lateral 

 supports. In the latter case the lateral roots spring from some 

 distance up the trunk, and then, like gigantic combs, run in all 

 directions over the ground (Plate 12). Such roots are thrown out 

 by the Sumaumas, the Cajas, or Cashews, or Balsam-plums, with 

 their yellow, acrid, but pleasantly-flavoured fruit, and above all 

 by many of the Leguminosae, whose great parasol crowns, when 

 the wind seizes upon them, need a correspondingly wide anchorage 

 down below. The stems of such trees merely rest on the surface of 

 the ground, and in order to fell them one has only to chop off their 

 roots. When overthrown the tree has a startling appearance, with its 

 flat bundles of roots staring into the sky. These roots were once of 

 great value to a people which had invented the axe, but not the saw. 

 I was always attracted by the deep crevices between them, in which 

 various animals, and especially snakes, were in the habit of taking 

 refuge. 



These roots support the lofty trunks like the piers and flying 

 buttresses of our Gothic cathedrals. The branches of the parasol- 

 trees, rising in flat curves, meet in a sharp point, and remind one of 

 the ribs of a Gothic vault. Just as the essential part of a church is 

 the framework of pillars and ribs and buttresses, so that a Gothic 

 cathedral would stand even without its walls, so in the tropical 

 forest the essential thing seems the structure; the more so as the 

 absence of an excessively dense roof of foliage enables the eye to 

 follow the rhythmic lines of the limbs and branches. The natural 

 energy of the tropical forest, the "luxuriance of the tropics," expresses 

 itself not by smothering the forest with masses of lush foliage, but 

 by creating a powerful and monumental structure. The outlines are 

 more vigorous than in a European wood; many trees put forth 

 their boughs horizontally, and then turn them upwards at a sharp 

 angle. In some trees the boughs coalesce with one another or with 

 the stem, reinforcing the strength of the tree ; in others the whole 

 trunk is fluted as though a bundle of individual stems had coalesced 

 to form a trunk (Plate 15), and here again we are reminded of a 

 Gothic cathedral, for the pillars of the latter are often surrounded 

 by semi-detached shafts. In India a single tree may constitute a 

 whole temple of columns. The Banyan or Indian fig extends its 

 branches horizontally, and from these aerial roots grow downwards 



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