n EQUATORIAL VEGETATION 245 



way on the .tops of these smaller trees overshadowed by the 

 dense canopy above them they would be out of sight of both 

 groups of insects ; but being placed openly on the stems, and 

 in the greatest profusion, they cannot fail to attract the atten- 

 tion of the wandering butterflies. 



Uses of Equatorial Forest Trees 



Amid this immense variety of trees, the natives have found 

 out such as are best adapted to certain purposes. The wood 

 of some is light and soft, and is used for floats or for carving 

 rude images, stools, and ornaments for boats and houses. The 

 flat slabs of the buttresses are often used to make paddles. 

 Some of the trees with furrowed stems are exceedingly strong 

 and durable, serving as posts for houses or as piles on which 

 the water -villages are built. Canoes, formed from a trunk 

 hollowed out and spread open under the action of heat require 

 one kind of wood, those built up with planks another ; and as 

 the species of trees in these forests are so much more numer- 

 ous than the wants of a semi-civilised population, there are 

 probably a large number of kinds of timber which will some 

 day be found to be well adapted to the special requirements 

 of the arts and sciences. The products of the trees of the 

 equatorial forests, notwithstanding our imperfect knowledge 

 of them, are already more useful to civilised man than to the 

 indigenous inhabitants. To mention only a few of those whose 

 names are tolerably familiar to us, we have such valuable 

 woods as mahogany, teak, ebony, lignum-vitae, purple -heart, 

 iron- wood, sandal- wood, and satin-wood ; such useful gums as 

 india-rubber, gutta-percha, tragacanth, copal, lac, and dammar ; 

 such dyes as are yielded by log-wood, brazil-wood, and sappan- 

 wood ; such drugs as the balsams of Capivi and Tolu, camphor, 

 benzoin, catechu or terra- japonica, cajuput oil, gamboge, quin- 

 ine, Angostura bark, quassia, and the urari and upas poisons ; 

 of spices we have cloves, cinnamon, and nutmegs ; and of 

 fruits, brazil-nuts, tamarinds, guavas, and the valuable cacao ; 

 while residents in our tropical colonies enjoy the bread-fruit, 

 avocado-pear, custard-apple, durian, mango, mangosteen, sour- 

 sop, papaw, and many others. This list of useful products 

 from the exogenous trees alone of the equatorial forests, 

 excluding those from the palms, shrubs, herbs, and creepers, 



