CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX 



LIFE IN THE TROPICS 



1. WITHIN the tropical zone are many different The tropical 

 climates. The humid forest contrasts with the grassy 

 uplands or mountain peaks, and the desert with both. 



It is in the dense forest that we think of tropical life 

 as being most typically developed, and here it is that 

 conditions are most strikingly different from those of 

 the temperate zones. In such a forest we note at once 

 the immense size of the trees, and their closeness to 

 one another. Where the forest is thickest it may be 

 perpetual twilight on the ground. Then we observe 

 that the herbaceous plants so characteristic of sylvan 

 spots in the north are almost or quite wanting under 

 the trees. In any enumeration of a tropical flora, the 

 ground-living small plants are relatively few, and the 

 number of 'species of trees is astonishing. There are, 

 however, many woody climbing plants, and high up 

 in the trees one perceives the epiphytes, plants which 

 live on the trunks and limbs, never reaching the ground 

 below. Many of these latter are orchids, some of 

 them with magnificent flowers. Yet the general im- 

 pression gained is that of greenness, without much 

 color. The bright flowers are dotted here and there, 

 often so far aloft that they cannot be seen. There is 

 nothing like the gay carpet of color to be seen any 

 spring in a European or American glade, or on the 

 summits of high mountains during the short summei 

 season. 



2. In temperate regions it is common to find forests Diversity of 

 consisting mainly of one kind of tree pine or oak, 



beech or chestnut. In the tropics there is amazing 

 diversity, and when a specimen of a particular tree has 



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