486 ZONES AND REGIONS [Pt. Ill, Sect. II 



with tree-ferns, fills up the intervals between the lofty towering Eucalypti; this 

 underwood is most peculiar in its wealth in arborescent Compositae, such as Athero- 

 sperma moschatum, Helichrysum ferrugineum, Senecio Bedfordi ; there are also 

 several species of Acacia, for instance A. decurrens in two varieties, A. retinodes, 

 A. leprosa, A. penninervis, besides various woody plants belonging to other families. 

 The lianes, of which most have slender stems and are usually herbaceous, are repre- 

 sented by Rubus macropodus and by a grass, Tetrarrhena tenacissima, which makes 

 some parts of the forest impenetrable and forms one of the strangest productions of 

 these remarkable forests, and, further, recalls the luxuriance of the tropics. 'The 

 climbing Tetrarrhena,' says Krone 1 , 'forms here and there tall densely interwoven 

 green walls suspended from the stems of the Eucalypti or from the crowns of other 

 trees and shrubs, or stretching between tall tree-ferns, the old dead fronds of which, 

 hanging from the stems, are frequently plaited together by the grass. Often the 

 grass has covered whole stretches of the pathway, and, at the same time, has over- 

 grown not merely huge fallen trunks of Eucalyptus spanning the road, but also the 

 luxuriant and varied vegetation that has sprung up upon them, or it has clothed 

 overturned fern-stems whose leaves, though dried up, still remain attached, so that 

 one walks upon a mass resembling an ill-stuffed cushion, and this tangle of grass 

 forms a kind of unbreakable suspension bridge reaching from stem to stem and over 

 broad depressions along which ripples the forest-brook.' 



To the quasi-tropical forms of vegetation also belongs a semi-epiphytic fern-liane, 

 Polypodium scandens, var. Billardieri, which in Victoria, curiously enough, is strictly 

 associated with the evergreen Australian beech, Fagus Cunninghami, that occurs 

 here and there in the forest. ' At Myrtle Creek, we find beech-trees grouped 

 gregariously, mostly splendid specimens of great age and yet perfectly sound, with 

 their imposing stems invested almost up to the crown by Polypodium scandens, 

 which grows so luxuriantly that it occasionally passes from beech to beech in 

 multiple twisted liane-strands, which, turning back on themselves, grow repeatedly 

 over one another, and, here and there, the liane penetrates the crowns of the beech 

 trees V 



Similar forest formations in which the leaf-canopy is chiefly formed by Eucalypti, 

 and the underwood by tree-ferns (Dicksonia antarctica), also occur in Tasmania 3 

 (Fig. 231). 



v. THE TEMPERATE RAIN-FOREST IN SOUTH JAPAN. 



Grand and unique, according to Rein's description, is the temperate rain- 

 forest in South Japan (Fig. 253), or rather it was so formerly, for it has 

 almost everywhere made way for cultivation, and has been spared only in 

 the sacred groves of the temples 4 . 



Lofty evergreen oaks (Quercus cuspidata, Q. glabra, Q. thalasica, Q. phyllirae- 

 oides, Q. acuta, Q. sessilifolia, Q. glauca, Q. gilva) form the chief components of 

 these forests, and, in places, even alone compose them. As a rule, however, some 



1 Krone, op. cit., p. 167. 2 Id., op. cit., pp. 175-6. 



3 I could not obtain access to the work of Tenison Woods on this subject. See Drude, 

 Pflanzengeographie, p. 501. 4 According to Mayr. 



