SEED AND ROOT 



193 



modifications and perform 

 similar functions, till the 

 original tree has become a 

 grove! The vigorous 

 growth of these trees may 

 be gathered from the fact 

 that one of their seeds, 

 which had been deposited 

 by a bird on the crown of 

 a Palm-tree, not only began 

 to germinate in that strange 

 situation, but actually sent 

 down a root through the 

 stem of the Palm, thus des- 

 troying its host and sup- 

 planting it ! 



Apropos of this subject, 

 we must say a word or two 

 about the parasitical vagar- 

 ies of the Brazilian Balsam- 

 tree (? Clusia rosea), with 

 handsome pink and white 

 flowers and large shining 

 leaves, which is thus referred 

 to by Dr. Wallace: "It 

 grows not only as a good- 

 sized tree out of the ground, 

 but is also parasitical on 

 almost every other forest 



tree. Its large round whitish fruits are called ' cebola braba ' (wild onion) 

 by the natives, and are much eaten by birds, which thus probably convey 

 the seed into the forks of lofty trees, where it seems most readily to take 

 root in any little decaying vegetable matter, dung of birds, etc., that may 

 be there ; and when it arrives at such a size as to require more nourish- 

 ment than it can there obtain, it sends down long shoots [? aerial roots] to 

 the ground, which take root, and grow into a new stem. At Nazare there 

 is a tree by the roadside, out of the fork of which grows a large Miicuja 

 Palm, and on the Palm are three or four young Glusia-trees, which no 

 doubt have Orchidece and Ferns again growing upon them." If we sup- 

 pose (arid the supposition is not extravagant) that these Ferns, at the 

 time when Dr. Wallace visited the spot, supported and nourished on their 

 fronds some creeping Moss-plants or Liverworts, we shall then have a 

 four-ranked succession of guest plants epiphytes on epiphytes, and on 

 these epiphvtes, and again epiphytes on them ! 

 16 



FIG. 245. BANYAN (Ficus indica). 



Showing the aerial roots which develop into stout props and trunks, 

 which enable the horizontal branches to grow indelinitely and cover 



