Cn.vr. II. COMPETITION AMONGST PLANTS. 55 



organs of fructification. All species entail in their suc- 

 cessful struggles the injury or destruction of many of 

 their neighbours or supporters, but the process is 

 not in others so speaking to the eye as it is in the case 

 of the Matador. The efforts to spread their roots are 

 as strenuous in some plants and trees, as the struggle to 

 mount upwards is in others. From these apparent 

 strivings result the buttressed stems, the dangling 

 air roots, and other similar phenomena. The compe- 

 tition amongst organised beings has been prominently 

 brought forth in Darwin's " Origin of Species ;" it 

 is a fact which must be ahvays kept in view in 

 studying these subjects. It exists everywhere, in 

 every zone, in both the animal and vegetable king- 

 doms. It is doubtless most severe, on the whole, in 

 tropical countries, but its display in vegetable forms in 

 the forest is no exceptional phenomenon. It is only 

 more conspicuously exhibited, owing perhaps to its 

 affecting principally the vegetative organs — root, stem, 

 and leaf — whose growth is also stimulated by the intense 

 light, the warmth, and the humidity. The competition 

 exists also in temperate countries, but it is there con- 

 cealed under the external appearance of repose which 

 vegetation wears. It affects, in this case, perhaps more 

 the reproductive than the vegetative organs, especially the 

 flowers, which it is probable are far more general decora- 

 tions in the woodlands of high latitudes than in tropical 

 forests. This, however, is a difficult subject, and one 

 which requires much further investigation, 



I think there is plenty, in tropical nature, to coun- 

 teract any unpleasant impression which the reckless 



