1 88 GALLERY FORESTS. 



gems of our stove-houses have been collected here. 

 The tree ferns, for instance, are often marvels of 

 exquisite grace and delicate freshness of colouring. 

 The largest and finest specimens of these beautiful 

 plants generally, however, occupy small openings among 

 the trees where their crowns are exposed to the sunlight. 

 Nothing can exceed their grandeur and beauty. Thus 

 Mr. Thomson, after recounting the glories of the giant 

 trees of the Unambara forest, exclaims 



" All these arboreal wonders were forgotten as my eye lighted 

 upon a lovely group of tree ferns, growing beside a rocky 

 stream, with straight stems twenty feet high, topped by a 

 delicate green crown of fronds. This part of the country 

 proved a very paradise of ferns." * 



It is in such places as these, along the banks of 

 streams flowing through ravines and deep channels 

 that the wonderful " gallery forests," first brought to 

 the notice of the world by Dr. Schweinfurth, are to 

 be found. But we shall leave the learned Doctor to 

 speak for himself on this subject: 



"Here too," (he says) "was unfolded the full glory of what 

 we shall in future understand as a 'gallery' these are tracts 

 of brook vegetation, within deep-cut channels, that form, 

 as it were, walls to confine the rippling stream, so that all 

 the vales are permanently adorned with tropical luxuriance." t 



In almost all damp tropical climates, the beds of 

 ravines and stream courses here and there present 

 scenes of fairy-like loveliness, these places forming a 

 series of shady grottoes, where delicate ferns and other 

 shade-loving plants flourish in unsurpassable beauty. 

 Dr. Schweinfurth was at this time travelling through 



* To the Central African Lakes and Back, by Joseph Thomson, 

 Vol. i., p. 56. 



f The Heart of Africa, by Dr. Georg Schweinfurth, Vol. i., pp. 504 5. 





