238 TRANSACTIONS. 
the most striking plants in existence. It has a stem 8 or 10 feet 
high and about 20 leaves spreading out like a fan, each of which 
is about 10 feet long. The bright white flowers grow on a sort of 
cone at the bases of the leaves, and the honey is busily visited by 
a beautiful little sunbird with a scarlet and blue breast. The 
seeds are the great mainstay, moreover, of the rather dingy slate- 
coloured Malagash Parrot, which frequents them in great numbers. 
This tree is of the greatest use to the natives, whose houses are 
built almost entirely with its leaves. The water, however, 
obtained by piercing the leaf bases is lukewarm and of a very 
vegetable taste. It is also here that the Rofia palm, whose split 
leaves are so much used by gardeners, grows. It is also here that 
the Bamboos thrive, with their enormous gracefully curved leaves, 
like a gigantic bunch of ostrich feathers, of a delicate yellowish 
ereen. The extraordinary Nepenthes, moreover, is not uncommon 
on these slopes. The grass clothing these gentle rises is very 
harsh and useless, and there is an abundance of the common 
bracken everywhere. : 
Soon, however, one enters the true forest, which covers three 
or four ranges of parallel mountain chains. It is usually not very 
beautiful. The path is only about two feet wide, and is walled in 
on either side by a sort of gigantic hedge 70 or 80 feet high. 
This is formed of dense undergrowth and huge trees, from the 
lower branches of which hang the enormous foliage masses of the 
climbing plants. The aim of Nature seems to have been to fill 
every available space with leaves. There are no glades and none 
of those agreeable vistas so common in English woods. Though 
the appearance of these trees is not really very striking, they are 
all of entirely different kinds. One here meets huge Compositee, 
the Vernonias, with enormous umbels of purple heads; such 
Leguminosz as Neobaronia with fleshy, flattened, leafless branches. 
Brexia, a tree 80 feet high, whose nearest relative in our 
country is the Saxifrage; Weinmannia is also a Saxifrage. 
Many of the largest trees belong to Enphorbiacex, such as the 
genus Euphorbia itself and Croton. There is also a huge forest 
tree, Wormia, a near ally of Ranunculacece. Few of these trees 
are at all beautiful ; perhaps the bright pink flowers of Ixora or 
Colea are the handsomest, and one of these in full blossom is very 
beautiful indeed. The creepers are chiefly objectionably spiny 
Asparaguses or Smilax, but their number and variety is enormous. 
The undergrowth of Plectranthus, Balsams, &c., is often very 
