82 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Yol. viL 



approaching the luxuriant display of foliage which we are accus- 

 tomed to associate with scenes in the Indies can be seen. On th& 

 hills about the mouth of Xagua Bay, I had an opportunity of" 

 seeing something of the brown leafless upland forests, such as 

 cover at this seasoa the slopes of the Cuban mountains. A, 

 noticeable feature in these woods is their low stature, and the 

 great abundance of trees of the family Leguminosce. Cacti are 

 frequently seen, both trailiog and arborescent species ; and, here 

 and there, that remarkable plant the American Aloe (^Agave 

 Americana.^ It becomes an object of beauty, conspicuous for 

 miles, when, at the close of its life, it exhausts all its energies in 

 producing that magnificent tree-like flower-stalk (20-30 feet high), 

 gilded with thousands of bright yellow blossoms, which, when, 

 vitality has quite departed, remains for years a withered monu- 

 ment of its fecundity. Perhaps no feature in the vegetation of" 

 the West Indies strikes a visitor from the higher latitudes of 

 America more forcibly than the varied forms assumed by the- 

 plants of the Pea-tribe. Accustomed as we are only to the herb- 

 aceous clovers, vetches and peas, or, where intercourse with the 

 South is more free, to the introduced locust tree, one can scarcely 

 realize, without actually seeing them, the many forms in which 

 this family meets us. Not only does it supply the Cubans witk 

 timber, but also with dyes, resins, flowering shrubs, hedge-plants^ 

 medicinal herbs, &c. 



Another very striking feature in the Cuban woods is the pre 

 sence of epiphytes, or air-plants, in abundance : they are chiefly 

 of two natural orders, the Orchids and the Bromelians. The 

 former have flowers of peculiar aspect and much beauty, and the- 

 latter are supplied with seeds fitted to float on the breeze and 

 find lodgment in the crevices and clefts of trees. They are the 

 birds of the vegetable kingdom, live in the air, are nourished in., 

 the trees, and renew their life without visiting mother earth. 



On some of the rough-bark trees these parasites cluster in 

 countless numbers, and form a conspicuous part of their foliage. 

 The Jucaro (^Bucida Bucei'as), for instance, seems literally op- 

 pressed with the swarms of Tillandsias bristling on every bough ;, 

 but such trees as the majestic Ceiba and the Royal Palm rear their 

 smooth grey trunks far above the ordinary forest growth, seem- 

 ing quite regardless of the small seeds that float by them. A 

 few efiect a lodgement among the lofty branches of the Ceiba, 

 but the Cuban Palm utterly repels them from its smooth stony~ 



