TEKACITY OF TREE-LTFE. 8S 



their support and growth, so that '' with their usurpation of the 

 resources of the fig tree, and the fig tree of tlie mora, the mora, 

 unable to support a cliarge whicli nature never intended it shouki, 

 dies under its burden, and then the fig tree and its usurping jiro- 

 geny of A'ines, receiving no more succor from their Lite foster 

 parent, drop and perish in their turn."' The piratical fig tree we 

 have described appeared to be receiving all its nourishment from 

 tlie rocks to which its net-work of roots were fastened, and from 

 the air that enveloped its Avide spreading and lusty branches. 

 No usurping vines imperilled its life. 



In the destructive hurricane of ISOG, some six or seven larsre 

 trees were torn up by the roots in one of Mr. Burnside's lots. 

 One tree which was completely prostrated, still adhered to the 

 rocks by a few of its unsevered roots, and we saw it green and 

 growing still, as if nothing unusual or adverse had happened. 



A large Jamaica tamarind tree, four or five feet in diameter 

 at its base, was at the same time also prostrated, and it had thus 

 far resisted all the efforts of the father of Mr. Burnside during 

 his life, and of his son since his death, to kill and get rid of it. 

 Fires were built around it, but it was too full of sap to burn, and 

 the bafiled fires went out. They " hacked it" as they had time 

 and opportunity, but the wounds soon healed and were covered 

 with new bark. It was in the way, but they had thus far been 

 unable to wholly abate the nuisance. At one time a large section 

 of the trunk was detached and afterwards removed with very 

 great difficulty by piece-meal. After more than twelve years, 

 some six or seven feet in length of the butt remains. It is fas- 

 tened to the rocks by a very small number of the old, and by large 

 re-inforcements of new roots, which this butt end of the old trunk 

 has pluckily and persistently formed and tied to the under-lying 

 rocks. Every wound it has during all these years received, has 

 been perfectly healed, and over the whole of the part from which 



