APPLICATION OF PHYTOSOCIOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES 307 



phyll, 1 species (2.2 per cent) nanophyll, 6 species (13 per cent) microphyll, 

 31 species (67.4 per cent) mesophyll, and 4 species (8.7 per cent) macrophyll. 

 When arranged according to phanerophy tic-height sub-classes (table 17), it 

 is seen that compound leaves increase in proportion the higher the stratum. 

 The fact that higher strata tend to have somewhat smaller leaf-blade areas is 

 partly but not entirely a function of the fact that blades of leaflets tend to be 

 smaller than blades of simple leaves. 



For the Castanhal material an analysis of the leaf form was also made. 

 The long-attenuate leaf tip, known as the drip point, is said to be character- 

 istic of rain-forest tree species, or at least more abundant in this formation 

 than in any other. It was found that only 29.4 per cent of the leaves were 

 not acuminate. It is more or less arbitrary to classify some of the acuminate 

 leaves as having drip points, but among the 70.6 per cent of the leaves with 

 the acuminate tips, 28.0 per cent of the 150 species studied had abruptly 

 more or less long tips of the drip-point type. Good examples from this com- 

 munity of leaves with drip points include Protium sagotianum March., Brosi- 

 mum paranense Huber, Minquartia guianensis Aubl., Guatteria donga t a 

 Benth., Inga heterophylla Willd., Qualea albiflora Warm., Lacunaria crenata 

 (Tul.) A. C. Smith, and Povteria glomerate Radlk. No statistics on the fre- 

 quence of drip points in the Mucambo flora were made. 



Table 4 contains the total vascular flora of the 2-hectare plot at Mucambo. 

 In this list the species are arranged first according to life-form class, and 

 within these classes are, second, arranged according to leaf-size class. The 

 table excludes common names, but includes notation as to leaf form, whether 

 simple or compound, and in the latter case the type of compounding. It is 

 on a basis of these data that the foregoing statistics have been computed. 



Alto do Palmital, Foz de IcuAgu, Parana.' The Falls of the Iguagu are 

 about 27 km. southeast of the town of Foz do Iguagu near the junction of 

 Argentina, Paraguay, and Parana, Brazil, at about 25° 40" S. Lat. and 

 54° 30" W. Long. The excellent "Mapa Fitogeografico do Estado do Parana" 

 by Reinhard Maack (1950) shows the northwestern part of the state to be 

 grassland Campos limpos, the southwestern part to be occupied by Araucaria 

 forest, which has an understory of rain-forest trees, and the west central 

 part to be occupied by sub-tropical rain forest ("Mata pluvial subtropical 

 do 3° planalto, rich in Cyatheaceae, epiphytes, and lianas, and with the palms 

 Euterpe edulis and Cocos romanzofflana"). 



Table 18, which corresponds to table 15 for Mucambo, gives the per- 

 centages of each of the life-form and leaf-size classes recognized. Only 66 

 species were collected and available for life-form and leaf-size study, although 



■^ On our visit to the Falls area we were assisted in a sample-plot study by Sr. 

 Aluiz Wichosky, Assistant Director of the National Park, and Sr. Romao Garcia and 

 Sr. Ventura Orencis Margues, mateiros. We studied a plot of 2,800 sq. m. divided 

 into sub-plots each 10 X 20 m. 



