28 EXCURSIONS ABOUT CAEACAS. 



forms of vegetation were of gigantic proportions. We 

 found a species of equisetum which was twelve feet in 

 height, and we were assured by Mr. Ernst that it fre- 

 quently attains a height of over thirty. Epipliytes, usu- 

 ally called air-plants, so covered the limbs of the trees, 

 that it was often difficult to determine whether what they 

 concealed was alive, or in a state of decay. Some of the 

 flowers of these orchidaceous plants are of exceeding 

 beauty, resembling in shape, and surpassing in the bril- 

 liancy of their colors, winged insects. The butterfly-flow- 

 er ( OrchkUum 2)ajnllio) is one of the most beautiful, and 

 is so similar in appearance to the insect whose name it 

 bears, that it not unfrequently deceives persons unac- 

 quainted with it. Others look like humming-birds, glit- 

 tering with metallic lustre. Many animated objects of 

 Nature are thus imitated by Flora's kingdom of the 

 tropics. 



We followed the ravine until tlie steepness of the as- 

 cent and the density of vegetation rendered farther ad- 

 vance exceedingly laborious ; when we climbed the high 

 banks that enclosed the gorge, and emerged \ipon the 

 open slope. The contrast between the vegetation in the 

 deep glen, and that of the sunburnt side of the moun- 

 tain, was no less striking in the different degrees of luxu- 

 riousness than in the specific peculiarity of distinct forms. 

 In this rocky soil, which for several months during the 

 year is not moistened by a single refreshing shower, 

 thrive only plants that are capable of enduring a long 

 season of drought, such as the maguey and cactus. The 

 straight, cylindric, and spiny trunks of cerei rise thirty 

 and forty feet in height amid straggling opuntias, whose 

 grotesque forms lend such a peculiar physiognomy to this 

 tropical landscape. A species of this consolidated form 

 of vegetation, the prickly-pear cactus {Oj^untia tuna), is 

 cultivated by the Venezuelians for the sake of its edible 



