ICH. Ill 



LOCALITY 47 



these mangrove woods is that of the Rhizophoraceae, 

 represented in Asia, the Malay Archipelago, and Australia 

 by the genera mentioned above, and in America and 

 West Africa by Rhizophora (R. Mangle). The Rhizo- 

 phora is the genus which can live in the water least 

 diluted by fresh water, while farther up the estuaries, 

 where the influence of the tide is less felt, the 

 other genera gradually come in, associated with others 

 belonging to other natural orders, such as Lumnitzera 

 (Combretaceae), Carapa (Meliaceae), Sonneratia (Lyth- 

 raceae), Aegiceras (Myrsineae),y4 m'cenm'a (Verbenaceae), 

 and Nipa (Palmae) in the eastern seas, and Lagun- 

 eularia (Combretaceae) and Avicennia in the seas 

 bathing the shores of West Africa and East Tropical 

 America. The Rhizophora is commercially important, 

 chiefly on account of the tannin obtained from the bark. 



In the more shallow portions of the swamps other 

 species come in. In Ceylon and elsewhere, for example, 

 great stretches get filled with a large "flowering" fern 

 (Acrostichum aureum) or with Screw-pine (Pandanus) 

 (Fig. 10), the stilt roots of which adapt it well to the 

 unstable soil in which it stands. 



Close behind the mangrove brake, but generally, 

 though not always, above the high-water mark, comes 

 another type of forests with trees, the fruit of many of 

 which is adapted to transport by water. The most 

 interesting to foresters by the eastern seas are the fruits 

 of Heritiera, one of which (H. Fomes) yields the 

 valuable elastic Sundri-wood of the Sunderbunds in the 

 G-angetic delta. Its fruit, containing an air-chamber, 

 has a hard polished epicarp, which is boat-shaped and 

 provided with a sharp keel, which not only helps it, 

 in navigating various currents, from being rolled over 

 and bruised, but which cuts into muddy bottoms and 

 helps as an anchor. Another economic tree of this 

 belt is the Coconut (Cocos nucifera), the fruit of which 

 is surrounded by a thick fibrous envelope. Among 

 others may be mentioned Hibiscus tiliaceus, Terminalia 

 Catappa, Sonneratia spp., Barringtonia speciosa, 



