230 EEI.ATrON BETWEEN CLIMATE AND VEGETATION 



tatioii, where plants grow pele-mele one upon tlie other, where 

 thousands of parasites are perpetually contending for the elabo- 

 rated sap of the patient trees, and developing on every side in 

 endless forms, where climbers and twiners are interwoven with 

 every branch. Not a sunbeam can pierce this shade. 



If we look for individual magnitude, this too will not fail to 

 create astonishment : the very grasses and bamboos grow into 

 hollow trees, which are large enough to be made into vats, 

 casks, water-pipes, and timber ; the long, straight stems of 

 Cyatheas and other ferns rise into the air like tall masts in 

 a pine forest ; the twining plants, the canes (Calami), Uranias, 

 and Naucleas grow to the size of an arm or leg, and, like ser- 

 pents, surround the trees, and sportively impress deep furrows in 

 their trunks. Here nothing occurs to check the almost incessant 

 growth of vegetation ; forms, which we only know as summer 

 flowers, in these forests live and grow continually for centuries. 

 Many a tree, like the African Adansonia, produces stems pro- 

 digious for their thickness, height, and age. Immensely large 

 cotton trees (Bombax), and a hundred others, astonish us by 

 their magnitude and prodigious wide-spreading branches. In 

 vain do we search in the tops of the trees for the extremities 

 of the climbing plants ; they throw themselves from tree to tree, 

 or, casting off all support, return to the ground, and there 

 renewing their growth, soon dart over to the tops of other trees. 

 In this way we see many a trunk connected with its neighbours 

 by the flexible arms of the Rattan (Calamus), not uncommonly 

 several hundred feet long. Invisible and unknown powers are 

 at work, in one direction driving onward the general mass of 

 vegetation, and in another enlarging and multiplying individuals. 

 One portion of the rushing sap rolls onward, thickening and 

 forming new parts, rising upwards or following a branched 

 direction ; another part distends the swelling bark, pierces the 

 branches, and stiffens in long rods, which either issue forth 

 along the main stems which they surround at acute angles like 

 so many stays, or rapidly descend from the upper branches, 

 strike fresh roots into the soil, and then give birth to other stems. 

 In like manner a thicket is often formed from a single tree, and 

 by their union the spaces in the forests are incessantly filled up. 

 I saw on the island of Semao a large forest, the trees of which 

 all originated from one fig-tree (Ficus Benjamina), and which 

 still retained their connection with each other. 



Not alone do great masses and vast size mark this luxuriant 

 vegetation, but endless diversity in size and form gives it its pre- 

 dominant character. In India we have nothing of the everlasting 

 monotony of the moors and heaths in the north of Europe ; or of 

 the scrubby bushes tliat clothe the salt plains of Siberia and Tar- 



