SURFACE ROOTS. 193 



of these great roots will sometimes protrude to a con- 

 siderable height often as high, and sometimes con- 

 siderably higher, than a man's knee, so that it is no 

 easy matter to step across them. These interlacing 

 coils twist about in a most extraordinary manner, 

 and often thickly cover a considerable surface, corre- 

 sponding, we have sometimes thought, to a certain 

 extent, with the spread of the branches overhead. A 

 fairly good example of such roots is easily acces- 

 sible to the inspection of visitors, on entering the 

 Royal Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya, near Kandy, 

 Ceylon, where a line of splendid specimens of the 

 Ficus Elastica, or Asiatic caoutchouc-tree, may be 

 seen exhibiting a large area of these "surface roots, n 

 covering the ground around their trunks, and without 

 the view of their curious sinuosities being obstructed, 

 as it often is in the jungle, by other growths of 

 various kinds. It is obvious that these matted coils 

 are another of the wise and curious provisions of 

 Nature for enabling the trees to resist the terrific 

 force of tornadoes, to which all tropical regions are 

 subject,* which would otherwise soon level the largest 

 trees with the earth; whereas when anchored in this 

 way they could not possibly go down without uplift- 

 ing in their fall a vast and ponderous mass of earth 

 and stones, attached to these gigantic floors of roots, 

 which thus form a regular pedestal to the parent tree, 

 which cannot be overturned. 



Air roots are another form of anchorage, of even 

 still greater efficiency, while at the same time they 

 also form a means of propagating fresh off-sets from 



* Ceylon has, however, thus far, been singularly free from those 

 destructive hurricanes which are so common in the Bay of Bengal. 



VOL. I. 13 



