THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 187 



island grow mimosas, gigantic bamboos and palms. 

 On the slopes of the mountains grow in rare perfec- 

 tion those huge tree-ferns, so much sought after by 

 botanists. The greater part of our European veg- 

 etables have succeeded there even the culture of the 

 vine has been attempted and grapes have been pro- 

 duced. Vanilla grows in perfection, and coffee and 

 the sugar-cane nourish so well that their export is 

 one of the chief commercial features, although in at- 

 tempting to raise these plants three serious difficulties 

 arise : the indolence of the natives, the excessive 

 price of labor, and a weed, called goyavier (guava- 

 tree), the roots of which are found everywhere. E~or 

 ought we to omit mentioning among these remarkable 

 trees peculiar to certain portions of our globe, the 

 mangroves, natives of Tropical America and India. 

 Long looked upon as strange hybrids, half tree, half 

 fish, living half plunged in the sea or the lagoons 

 near the coast, these trees (Rliizopliora gymnorrhisa) 

 send down little rootlets from their branches, all ready 

 to start a new growth as soon as they sink into the 

 mud which surrounds the mother plant. Thus they 

 form a new family group around the parent stem and 

 soon spread out into a vast, almost impenetrable for- 

 est, full of mysterious awe and exhaling a deadly 

 miasma. 



The highest trees in the world are to be seen in 

 Van Dieman's Land. They are called in Australia 

 marsh-gum trees, divided into red, white and spotted 

 gums ; they belong to the genus Eucalyptus, repre- 

 sented in our country by the evergreen myrtle. The 



