46 I N A G U A 



radicel or spear-like root which hangs downwards from the 

 branch. This is held intact until one of two events occurs. 

 Either the spear will reach the ground and attach itself by 

 rootlets and begin its growth as a separate tree, breaking loose 

 from the parent; or it will suddenly part its top fibers and 

 plunge straight downwards like a javelin and bury itself in the 

 soft ground. By its own weight it fixes itself upright until the 

 roots can take hold and consolidate their position. 



Something had gone awry with this seed-root. It had fallen 

 on its side, deflected by a branch and floated away on the re- 

 ceding tide; or it had struck some hard object beneath the mud, 

 a shell or buried log, and failed to secure a purchase. The tide 

 and the trade wind had brought it to Sheep Cay. Whether it 

 would survive after having arrived was a moot question. But 

 not twenty feet away was another radicel half buried in the 

 sand. From the top of this was emerging a pair of green tissues, 

 dark and lanceolate, the first leaves. Beneath the soil long fi- 

 brous roots had anchored themselves firmly entwining the 

 wreck of a long buried conch. 



In just such a way did the great tree in the center of the 

 island secure a hold. Its early existence must have been a ter- 

 rific struggle, a battle with salt spray, sticky foam, with the 

 shifting of sand grains and the swirhng waves. But it had tri- 

 umphed. The first rootlet had become two, then four, then 

 sixteen, a hundred and a hundred thousand. The newly sprouted 

 leaves drank in the brilliant sunlight and by the magic of their 

 green chlorophyll transmuted its energy to tissue of trunk, and 

 tendril and blossom. Branches dropped additional rootlets, these 

 pierced the sand and raised new shoots, from these came other 

 branches, other leaves, more blossoms, seeds and the pointed 

 fingers of seed radicles. These in their turn had dropped off 

 and sprouted, fusing with the parent, until for yards around the 

 shifting sand bar had become stabilized and assumed the status 



