358 Natural History Bulletin. 



except by the dripping of the water from the dome of vegeta- 

 tion overhead, spreads over all. No roads cut its compact 

 mass, and only the paths of the hunter or rubber-poacher 

 serve to guide, or more frequentl}' to confuse, the bewildered 

 traveller. It is folly to enter these forests without a guide or 

 a compass, the safest and most pleasant mode of travel, where 

 it is possible, being by canoe along the numerous water-courses. 



Two facts strike the observer as peculiar, at least during 

 the season which the party spent at Castillo, namely, the com- 

 parative scarcity of brilliant flowers, and the failure ot plants 

 of one species to mass together. The comparatively small 

 number of conspicuous flowers is a disappointment to him 

 who expects to find a mass of brilliant bloom in these tropical 

 forests, not so much because these flowers are really wanting, 

 but because the flowering period of most of the species is 

 rather long, and com.paratively few flowers appear at any one 

 time, and for the further, and perhaps more important reason 

 that the flowers which do appear seem insignificant when 

 compared with the sea of green which covers everything. 



No less striking is the fact that as a rule specimens of any 

 one species do not mass together to the exclusion of other 

 species, excepting sometimes along the water-courses, particu- 

 larly in swampy places. Different kinds of trees are mingled 

 together in endless confusion, and no "groves" of any one 

 species, such as those with which we are familiar in the Norths 

 occur, nor can any species as a rule even be said to predomi- 

 nate. The same is true of smaller plants, and the collector is 

 not only often bewildered bj' the variety of plants which 

 comes in his way even in a restricted locality, but is also pro- 

 voked by the scarcity of specimens of most of the species. 

 Along the low river- valleys however this is not true, for often 

 palms, grasses, etc., take possession of large tracts, the rivers 

 no doubt facilitating the distribution of their seeds during 

 overflows. 



The same scarcity of old sticks and logs suitable to the 

 growth of Shme-moulds, etc., which was noticeable on Ome- 



