SHADE-LOVING FOREST GROWTHS. 187 



mendous rainfall, characteristic of the equatorial regions 

 so that a vast natural stove-house, with an atmo- 

 sphere precisely similar to that of an orchid house at 

 home, is perpetually kept up in the umbrageous arcades 

 thus created beneath. 



Here, the numerous shade and moisture-loving 

 tropical trees of the larger size find their natural 

 habitat, and form a second forest of medium sized 

 trees, whose crowns do not touch the lowermost 

 branches of the trees above. These are, perhaps, from 

 forty to sixty feet in height, or even more, if circum- 

 stances permit their growing to a greater height, 

 beneath the protection of their more gigantic and 

 sun-loving neighbours and it is among this class of 

 trees that many of the treasures of the tropical forest 

 are numbered so far, that is, as this vast treasure 

 house of Nature has as yet been explored and its 

 products made known to the world. 



Beneath this second forest, in the still deeper shadows 

 below, a third forest is often found, consisting of still 

 smaller trees, ten or twelve feet high, among, or 

 beneath which, are numerous dwarf palms, tree ferns, 

 and gigantic herbaceous plants, and lastly, 

 "coming to the surface of the ground itself, we find much 

 variety. Sometimes it is completely bare, a mass of decaying 

 vegetation. More frequently it is covered with a dense carpet 

 of selaginella, and other lycopodiaceae, and these sometimes 

 give place to a variety of herbaceous plants, sometimes with 

 pretty but rarely with conspicuous flowers." * 



The marvellous beauty and richness of some of this 

 undergrowth is a thing that must be seen before it 

 can be realized ; suffice it to say, that many of the 



* Tropical Nature, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 34. 



