Chap. IV] TROPICAL DISTRICTS CONSTANTLY MOIST 313 



the crowns of the highest trees and clothe their stems most luxuriantly with 

 long- leaved shoots. The species of Carludovica are less lofty and less 

 vigorous climbers. Yet I saw Carludovica Plumieri play an imposing part 

 in the forests of the Lesser Antilles, where as a pronounced shade-plant it 

 enveloped all the stems in the gloomy forests with its palm-like leaves, 

 between which projected its extremely peculiar creamy-white spadices 

 decked with long filiform staminodes. Sarcinanthus with one species, S. 

 utiliSj is limited to the forests of Central America and Southern Mexico. 



Fig. 153. Sarcinanthus utilis (Cyclanthaceae) climbing on tree-stems of the South Mexican 

 rain-forest. Province of Chiapas. From a photograph by G. Karsten. 



It is easily recognizable in our Figs. 129, 152, and 153, by its bipartite 

 leaves. 



Among other monocotyledonous lianes, besides those mentioned, the 

 Araceae are in the first rank. The large genera Philodendron, Monstera, 

 Pothos, and some smaller ones, contain a number of tall large-leaved root- 

 climbers, that form one of the most striking features of the tropical rain- 

 forest, particularly in America (Figs. 129, 152). 



The stems of these lianes, like those of Carludovica, produce along their 

 whole length numerous adventitious roots of quite dissimilar anatomical 

 and physiological natures (Figs. 154, 155). Some are developed as 

 ancJioring-roots and are relatively short (often 2-3 decimeters, or even less) ; 

 they are markedly negatively heliotropic, so that they press themselves 



