IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE GLOBE. 231 



tary, where a wretched sameness of form constantly attends the 

 traveller's dreary progress. Here abound numerous families and 

 forms of plants, of which our indigenous vegetation affords no 

 example. A single Indian island frequently possesses almost 

 every variety of vegetation ; the few which are not to be found 

 in the fertile soil of Java are merely such as require a dry sterile 

 soil, like succulents and the spiny forms of Africa, which live 

 mainly upon air and dew, and consequently can exist in a dry 

 sand. A single tree frequently displays an entire flower-garden, 

 raised upon a single stem into the air. 



It is more especially to the different elevations of the land in 

 the Indian islands, and to the change of temperature which is 

 connected with it, as well as to the nature of the mountains 

 themselves, that so great a variety of forms is owing. There is 

 perhaps no country in tlie world in which, upon so limited a 

 space, the floras of the most distant regions are thus assembled. 

 A few hours are often sufficient to see them all in their natural 

 localities, or even to experience a change of climate from tlie 

 heats of the Line to the rigour of the Polar regions. Nothing 

 can be more singular than the peculiar vegetation of the beach, 

 where the dissimilar forms grow crowded together in amity. 

 We there find the tall, stout, broad-leaved Calophyllum standing 

 among the branched ^giceras, while the straight and slender 

 stems of lofty palms dart upwards from among impenetrable 

 thickets, where entangled mangroves (Rhizophoras), grey 

 Tournefortias and Avicennias, varnished Dodoneas and Sonne- 

 ratias are all associated with the long drumsticks of Bruguieras 

 and the spherical fruits of the Screw-pine (Pandanus). Thence, 

 as the plain rises gradually, the cocoa-nut trees, fan-palms, and 

 others of that race become scarcer, and show how unwilling they 

 are to leave the shore. Passing through an endless variety of 

 shrubs on the foreground of low hills, the traveller soon reaches 

 the crowd of trees which cover the base of the mountains ; and 

 which, because of the predominating species found there, may be 

 called Fig forests. From wiiat Professor Blume and myself 

 liave observed, the number of figs in these forests may belong to 

 at least a hundred distinct species, of which the greater part is 

 confined to the lower region. Their general character is to give 

 a closeness and darkness to the air by their density and the lofti- 

 ness of their trunks. The damp atmosphere by which they are 

 surrounded, their immensely thick stems, and spreading branches, 

 their singularly rapid vegetation, and the soft spongy substance of 

 their wood, afford pasturage to an infinite variety of parasites and 

 twining plants, which derive their nourishment partly from the 

 trees, and partly from the deep loose moist decayed vegetable 

 soil. Numerous monkeys leap screaming over the higher 



