400 TEINIDAD. 



such as the locust, poui, and cedar, with here and there a wild 

 plum tree or a sterculia, and in which the under-wood is made 

 up of melastomaceae (Clidemia and Miconia), rubiacese, peppers, 

 grasses, and cyperacea? — you reach, about 1,500 feet higher up, 

 a region where the aspect of the woods begins to change. 

 Winds must blow here with great violence, at times, since the 

 ground is strewed with small branches; humidity also is 

 greater, as indicated by the number of mosses and ferns that 

 clothe the trunks of the trees. Here is a kind of bamboo 

 (Chusquea) , a climbing plant which is not to be met with in the 

 lower parts, and also very rarely on other mountains. The 

 growth and size of the trees decrease as we gradually ascend 

 higher and higher until we reach the summit, where they become 

 stunted and scarce, being replaced by a small palm (Geonoma). 

 Here occurs a new and interesting vegetation, which exhibits 

 some of the characters of the mountain districts of South 

 America, as described by Humboldt and others ; here, also, we 

 meet with one or two tree-ferns of a goodly size, a Thibaudia ) 

 and the beautiful Utricularia montana, growing on trees like 

 other parasites. Nearly all the stems are covered with junger- 

 mannias and mosses, ferns and small orchids ; some spots are 

 covered, exclusive of all other plants, with another bambusaceous 

 grass, viz., the Platonia elata. 



As has already been remarked, the woods of the plains do 

 not differ very materially from those of the lower mountains. 

 There are only two species of our forest trees that are gregarious 

 in growth, and that may be termed social — the Mora, which 

 covers extensive tracts of land in different parts of the island ; 

 and the mangrove {Rhizojohora) , which grows in the saline 

 swamps that border the sea ; the rhizophora is, however, gener- 

 ally accompanied by the other species of mangrove, viz., the 

 Avicennia and the Conocarpus. The conocarpus appears to be a 

 salt-plant, for I also found it near the mud-volcanoes, together 

 with a few other shrubs, and amarantaceous plants which thrive 

 near the sea-shore. 



Next to our forests, our so-called " natural savannah 

 deserve notice. Four different classes may be distinguished, all 

 more or less denuded of trees and shrubs. The first class is the 

 periodically inundated savannahs of the coast, immediately in the 

 rear of the mangrove forests of Caroni and Chaguanas. Coarse 



ive 



