290 ZONES AND REGIONS [Pt. Ill, Sect. I 



the Araliaceae, with their rosettes of large leaves on a stem that is either 

 simple or but slightly branched. 



Although the above-mentioned types of shrubs or small trees are usually 

 provided with inconspicuous flowers, a fine show is made, especially in 

 tropical America, by a number of Melastomaceae with flowers of incompar- 

 able beauty. The most varied kinds of Rubiaceae, such as Pavetta and 

 species of Psychotria, frequently bear their beautiful thyrsoid inflorescences 

 of coral-red or white flowers on axes glistening in the same tints. If a sepal 

 is large, or blood-red in colour, we are dealing with a Mussaenda (Asia), 

 or a Warszewiczia (America). Certain Rubiaceae of the Javanese forests 

 have a highly repulsive but characteristic odour of excrement, for instance 

 Lysianthus purpureus. Among shrubs or small trees may also readily 

 be found, in America, flowering specimens of Vochysiaceae, Malvaceae 

 (Abutilon), Samydaccae (Casearia), Mutisiaceae (Stifftia), Solanaceae, 

 Mimoseae (Inga, Calliandra), and the beautiful species of Rrownia (Caesal- 

 piniaceae) with their bright red cauliflorous clusters of blossom. In tropical 

 Eastern Asia, again, besides the types already mentioned, in particular 

 species of Anonaceae, Ternstroemiaceae (Saurauja) and Myrsineae (Ardisia) 

 are conspicuous by their flowers, by which they can easily be determined. 

 But nearly always such species with abundant and beautiful blossoms are far 

 less numerous than those whose flowers are few or inconspicuous, as is 

 the case amongst Urticaceae, Piperaceae, Euphorbiaceae. One will also 

 find, especially at the height of the rainy season, very many shrubs and 

 small trees without either blossom or fruit. 



The herbaceous vegetation is very poorly developed in the darkest part 

 of the virgin forest ; in the better-lighted portions, however, it is often 

 surprisingly luxuriant. The Scitamineae are certainly its most prominent 

 representatives, not only because of their dimensions and their large brightly 

 coloured inflorescences, but also frequently because of their great abundance 

 (Fig. 135). On the Lesser Antilles I frequently saw Heliconia Bihai, H. 

 caribaea, and other species taller than a man (Fig. 178) and forming 

 a dense thicket with their long-stalked leaves, between which the large 

 inflorescences projected with distichous, red keel-shaped bracts. Still 

 more striking, and at all events more varied in their appearance, are, 

 in the East Indies, the Zingiberaceae, several genera of which, such as 

 Elettaria, Hedychium, Zingiber, Costus, Alpinia. and many species form 

 little woods in the high-forest. Thus, in the forests of Java, one frequently 

 sees dense expanses of such Zingiberaceae taller than a man, with their 

 stiff distichous shoots allowing no other vegetation to grow between, and 

 their strange inflorescences, like bright red cabbage-heads, as in Costus 

 globosus, Elettaria sp., or like fiery stars, as in Elettaria coccinea, resting 

 with broad bases on the bare soil. 



It is in fact a frequent phenomenon in tropical virgin forest that a wide 



