THE LIANAS 



VV E now come to a component of the tropical forest which is as 

 essential a part of its expression as the wrinkles in the forehead of an 

 old man, and the lines about his mouth and chin. 



The plant-world of the tropics does not live only by growing 

 upwards toward the light and spreading out its broad crowns of 

 foliage; it lives also by creeping and climbing. And it is precisely 

 this characteristic which is most unfamiliar to the European, and 

 which produces the most lasting impression. 



Moreover, the tropical creepers and climbers contribute more than 

 anything else to the magic of the equatorial forest, and they deserve 

 the pleasant-sounding name which the French brought with them 

 from the West Indies — lianas. In Brazil, however, the lianas are 

 known as cipos or trepadeiras. 



These serpentine, twining growths are true children of the tropics. 

 Kerner von Marilaun estimates the ratio of the climbing plants of 

 Europe to those of the tropics to be 200: 2,000; and Grisebach 

 reckons that the woody plants of the West Indies constitute 33 per 

 cent, of all the higher forms of vegetation, and the woody lianas 

 8 per cent., while in Europe the proportion oi all species of creeping 

 and climbing plants is only i -8 per cent. Within the tropics, America 

 has nearly twice as many lianas as Asia. Brazil, in this respect, holds 

 the palm. 



And if we take Europe alone of the lands of the temperate zones, 

 the number of the climbing plants is still further reduced. Of 

 climbers with woody stems we have really only three of any 

 importance : the ivy, the clematis, and the honeysuckle. And the 

 two latter, at all events, do not favour the depths of the forest, but 

 rather the fringes of the woods, or the bare rocks and thickets of a 

 quarry, when they grow in such interwoven intricacy — assisted by 

 the wild hop and, above all, the thorny bramble — that the whole 

 becomes quite as impenetrable as a tropical forest strung with 

 lianas. 



Since Europe has but few species of trees in comparison with the 

 tropics, it is only natural that the woody climbers should be fewer 

 in number. But why are our woods not richer in the herbaceous 

 climbers, such as the peas, beans, vetches and hops? 

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