— 243 — 



Sw,, a little bush which outermost is not more than a foot high, 

 Avith dense, short, crooked, erect branches. What greatly adds to 

 the rugged and stunted appearance are the persisting stipules, 

 which on account of the very slow growth and the consequently 

 short intervals are quite dense; under favourable conditions the 

 internodes may be 4—5 cm. or more long, here they are often 

 only a few mm.; the stiff, dry, glossy, elliptic-linear leaves the ana- 

 tomy of which is mentioned by Warming (1. c. p. 195) are almost 

 vertical and tend to give the plant a strongly xerophilous character. 



Fig. 27. View of the inland vegetation at Sandy Point. The small tree to the 



left is Erithalis fruticosa L., that in the background Tecoma lencoxylon L., to 



the right and in the foreground Coccoloba iivifera L. Tlie copses in the 



middle are Ernodea littoralis Sw., Croton, Lantana etc. (F. B. phot.) 



Frequently the plant is almost quite overgrown by the parasitic 

 Cassijtha americana Nees which like Cuscuta with its yellow thread- 

 like intermixed branches often forms a quite dense network round 

 the host-plant. Among Ernodea were further Euphorbia linearis 

 Retz., a little erect bush of which the branches emei'ge at a very 

 acute angle from the main stem, bearing linear, erect glaucous 

 leaves and Ehacoma crossopetalum L. a low bush with small ovate 

 leaves. A few species from the Cro^on-bushes also appear, such as 



