Tropical Forests 



heavy, and full of reminiscences of decaying vegetation. 

 Generally dull grey clouds cover the sky and increase 

 the oppressiveness of the atmosphere. Such estuaries 

 are covered with the remarkable mangrove-forests. 

 There is neither cold nor drought to check in any way 

 the riotous luxuriance of their growth, nor that of the 

 ever-recurring birth of millions of objectionable insects. 



Mosquitoes especially swarm along the creeks and 

 river branches, which extend for many miles inland and 

 are everywhere fringed by those monotonous mangroves. 

 Here and there a crocodile may be seen reposing on the 

 sand, for fishes abound in the water as well as manatees 

 and other unusual animals. 



Monkeys occasionally visit the creeks at low tide 

 to feed on the oysters which grow on the mangrove 

 roots. At low tide the appearance of the banks is quite 

 unique. There is no firm, solid ground, but instead a 

 dark blackish or brown slime of very unprepossessing 

 appearance and exceedingly deep. From its depths 

 bubbles of objectionable gases often arise and burst on 

 the surface-mud, in which a small perch may be seen 

 squattering about or climbing up by its winglike fins on 

 to a mangrove root in order to rest, gasping, in the air. 

 Out of this loathly mud rises the wilderness of mangrove 

 roots, of which each tree has a large number. They 

 curve outwards in a complicated system from the base 

 of the trunk so as to form a series of buttresses rising 

 boldly out of the mud. The root system of each tree 

 is entangled with that of its neighbour, which gives it a 

 very strange appearance. Very odd growths, rather like 

 asparagus shoots, are the air-roots by which oxygen 

 penetrates to the root-system. 



The foliage is dense and of a glossy green ; the leaves 

 are smooth, not unlike those of laurels or rhododendrons, 

 though some possess a long and fine tip (see p. i88). 

 From the branches long roots hang down towards the 



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