360 ANNUAL REPOiRT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION,, 1942 



pedes, various insect larvae, roaches, ants, and bees, some preferring 

 a particular type of bromeliad. The frogs that find a permanent 

 residence in the deep, dark cylinders and cups of the bromeliads 

 interested us most, and we made a small collection of them for Dr. 

 Lutz. She has stated that "bromeliads make frogs independent of 

 climate and environment, by creating a special environment." 



In dry areas of Matto Grosso I found one of the biggest and 

 most curious of the tree frogs, known as Hyla venulosa because of 

 prominent veins in the eye. I had a hard time dislodging this 

 one. It seemed to be stuck to the inside of the Billhergia zehrina 

 where it was hibernating through a dry season. I shook and shook 

 the plant but finally had to cut it open, and when I pulled the frog 

 out of the little "canoe" of the bromeliad leaf, my fingers were all 

 glued together. The frog had immediately thrown out his smoke 

 screen, or rather, his rubber screen. Wlien I touched him, a pure 

 white latex oozed out of every pore of his body. 



I am very sorry now that we did not bring back a good supply 

 of these frogs. In the later rubber famine we might have helped 

 solve a national problem ! 



The bromeliads apparently depend more on color to attract the 

 fauna that act as an aid to pollinization than on perfume which in 

 most flowers attracts the insects. Nectar gatherers that seem to have 

 a special accord with bromeliads are the darting hummingbirds whose 

 small, nimble bodies can get between the most complicated parts of a 

 bromeliad flower and whose long, thin bills are especially adapted for 

 efficient use in the tubular or deep-set flowers. Judging by the fre- 

 quency of seeing hummingbirds at a brilliant bromeliad flower and 

 also by the fact that hummingbirds would frequently hover around 

 the red rain coat Mrs. Foster sometimes wore, I would say that they 

 are attracted to the long tubes of bromeliad nectar more by color than 

 by perfume. In Brazil they call these dainty little birds most 

 appropriately "beija-flor," the flower kisser. 



THE TERRESTRIAL RELATIVES 



The most familiar bromeliad is the terrestrial pineapple. Because 

 of its delicious fruit, much desired by mankind, it has become a great 

 globetrotter and now seems even to be most at home in the Hawaiian 

 Islands far from its birthplace in Central and South America. Since 

 the form of the pineapple plant is typical of that of other terrestrial 

 bromeliads, the Bromeliaceae have become known as the "pineapple 

 family." 



The pineapple type of foliage is common to many of the terrestrial 

 genera. The more compact spiny types such as D enter ocohnia^ Dyckia, 

 and Encholirium resemble each other so much in foliage that unless 



