onciiiDE^. 149 



from it, but from the suiroundinc: air, or, more correctly, from the moisture that is in 

 tlie air. Tlie expression " Air-|ihint," therefore, is not so appropriate as is supposed, 

 for though it be true tliat our Kpipliytal Orchids will live a loii>; time when merely 

 suspended in the air, the main condition for their so doinc;, and for their growth, 

 when so suspended, is that the air be charj;ed with moisture. Their true nourish- 

 ment is water, not air, as is evident from the fact that they are denizens of damp 

 tropical forests and abound most where the rainfall is the heaviest, or, from whatever 

 circumstances, the atmosphere continues to bo heavily laden with moisture; becoming 

 rarer in drier climates, until, in the absolutely dry, they refuse to grow altogether. 

 Their remarkable power of enduring a sustained drought is simply due to the store 

 of moisture which they lay up for themselves during the rainy season in their fleshy 

 stems or pseudo-bulbs. These arc always expanded and plump at the close of the 

 rains ami become more or less shrunUen aud angular by the end of the diy season, in 

 consequence of their store of moisture being gradually exhausted in supporting life 

 and in the production of the tiowers. The case is the same with other epiphytes. 

 They nearly all have either thick and fleshy drooping stems, corresponding to the 

 lengthened pseudo-bulbs of most Iktidrohin, or large swollen rhizomes or root-stocks, 

 corresponding to those of BuUnif)hijlla, in which moisture is garnered in the rainy 

 season and used in the flowering or dry season. Some Vaccinia, for example, have 

 huge swellings, occasionally as large as a child's head, which are the stock from 

 which the short thin branches rise; and the beautiful large white Khododcndron, 

 which is found on the high branches of trees in the mountains east of Maulmain, has 

 lengthened root-stocks of considerable thickness, which enable it to live when the 

 exterior moisture fails, though this may not be for long at the groat elevation at 

 which it grows. There are, indeed, exceptions to this fleshy habit in some epiphytes, 

 as in the case of an elegant small scarlet-flowered CExcln/nanthus, which I found on 

 the Shan border, the stems of which were long and slender ; but then it grew in the 

 densest and dampest jungles, into which the sun's rays hardly penetrated, and all 

 attempts to make it grow in the drier atmosphere of Maulmain failed. Very ditt'erent 

 to this is the growth of "parasites," which fasten on and become incorporated with 

 the substance of the tree on which they grow, and drain their lifo-sap. A common 

 example of such a parasite is ftirnished by a Loranihus,^ the appearance of which 

 should bo familiar to all who have observed the ^^ Amherdias'" in Rangoon and 

 Maulmain, where hardly a tree attains any size before it is preyed upon by this 

 injurious plant. - 



' Undor the head of " VauJa," further on, it will be fuimd stated that that name is a Sanscrit 

 one, simply adopted by us. But the same name was jjiveu also to " Lortinthus" ; tlieivfore, as Sir 

 Wni. Jones suii^'csts, it was probal)ly the Sanscrit for all plants, whether epiphytal or parasitic, whicli 

 fastened themselves on others. This want of discrimination lietweeu two very diiferent kinds of fjrowth, 

 though excusable in pre-scientific and ■• if,'norant " days, is hardly so now. And while on the snliject 

 of native names, it will be found, I believe, that tlu-y are for the most part names of a class sniisested 

 by some superficial similarity, and not the result of any nice distinctions; tliey aie fieneric, in fact, and 

 not specific, and very broadly so. Specilic distinctions' are entirely the production of modern science. 



* Apro])os of epiphytes and parasites, the following fact of vegetable life may be interesting. 

 There grew, when I first 'went to Maulmain, in 1S.V2, just inside " Tiger's gap " (as the entrance to the 

 Cantonments on the Nyahustee si<le was then called) in' tlie centre of the three-cross way, " trivia! juncta 

 vim," a fine y'Utx arl/orca,f,mim 40 feet liigli. Tliere stood in the same place, when I left in 1876, 

 a " Peipiil" or " J-inis" tree of even larger size, the I'lUx having entirely disappeared. Yet no one 

 removed the one or planted the other: it was a simple natural operation, the silent work of some 

 twenty years. 



A ripe tig-seed obtained a lodgment in some crevice of the unhappy Vitex, germinated, and became 

 a small and ajiparentlv iiniocent cpiphijh'. Being tliere comfortably entertained, it turned parasite 

 (though not in the strict botanical sense), anil took an unhandsome advantage of its position, to stretch 

 its root* downwards till they touched the earth, and its branches laterally over those of its supporter. 



" In the meek garb of modest worth disguised, 

 The eye averteii, and the smile ch.astised. 

 With sly approach it spread its dangerous charms. 

 And round its victim wound it-s wiry arms." — Darwin. 



For sonic years it did no very evident harm, but iu coiu-se of time, slowly aud insidiously, the roots and 



