II 



EQUATORIAL VEGETATION 



The Equatorial Forest-Belt and its causes General features of the Equa- 

 torial Forests Characteristics of the Larger Forest-trees Flowering 

 Trunks and their probable cause Uses of Equatorial Forest-trees 

 The Climbing Plants of the Equatorial Forests Palms Uses of Palm- 

 trees and their Products Ferns Ginger- worts and wild Bananas 

 Arums Screw-pines Orchids Bamboos Uses of the Bamboo 

 Mangroves Sensitive-plants Comparative Scarcity of Flowers 

 Concluding Remarks on Tropical Vegetation. 



IN the following sketch of the characteristics of vegetable life 

 in the equatorial zone, it is not intended to enter into any 

 scientific details or to treat the subject in the slightest degree 

 from a botanical point of view ; but merely to describe those 

 general features of vegetation which are almost or quite 

 peculiar to this region of the globe, and which are so general 

 as to be characteristic of the greater part of it rather than of 

 any particular country or continent within its limits. 



The Equatorial Forest-Belt and its Causes 



With but few and unimportant exceptions a great forest 

 band from a thousand to fifteen hundred miles in width girdles 

 the earth at the equator, clothing hill, plain, and mountain 

 with an evergreen mantle. Lofty peaks and precipitous 

 ridges are sometimes bare, but often the woody covering con- 

 tinues to a height of eight or ten thousand feet, as in some of 

 the volcanic mountains of Java and on portions of the Eastern 

 Andes. Beyond the forests both to the north and south, we 

 meet first with woody and then open country, soon changing 

 into arid plains or even deserts which form an almost con- 



