346 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



pulp which has a pleasing taste and is commonly eaten by 

 children. 



The usual idea of tropical America, particularly of the 

 forests, is of perpetual verdure, of trees that are never 

 leafless but drop their leaves and renew them constantly 

 as most conifers do in the north. The absence of "spring" 

 and other seasons, the consequent monotony of the forest 

 after the first sensations of awe and wonder have been dulled 

 by custom, have been dwelt upon by many travelers, notably 

 Wallace and Bates. The "perpetual verdure" does exist 

 over the vast regions which receive the tremendous precipi- 

 tation derived from the Atlantic trade winds. We were 

 never able to appreciate how the forests, as we saw them in 

 Costa Rica, could become monotonous, because we only re- 

 mained in Costa Rica a year and of that period not by any 

 means the whole time was spent in the Atlantic lowlands 

 and the forests seem still an inexhaustible mine of interest 

 and fascination. But it is wholly erroneous to apply the 

 descriptions of the Atlantic slope to the Pacific. There the 

 divisions into seasons are as well marked as in any north- 

 ern country, only the basis of the division is the amount of 

 precipitation and not the amount of heat. The smaller 

 vegetable forms often dry up completely, so that grass 

 lands show only brown stubble, and roadside thickets bare 

 branches. As Werckle points out, many species of trees 

 drop all their leaves at once and there are forest areas 

 which are as leafless for a short time as our northern de- 

 ciduous forests in winter, although the usual association of 

 numerous species in a forest is likely to result in half the 

 trees being green all the time. There is the greatest varia- 

 tion in the habit of losing the leaves. Some legumes and 

 urticaceous trees drop their leaves at the beginning of ve- 

 rano (summer or dry season) and replace them immediately 

 so that throughout the rainless season they show the freshest, 



