I 9 i IN THE GUIANA FOREST. 



To see the representatives of the pretty wood 

 flora of temperate climes we must look overhead, 

 and even then find nothing unless we go to the 

 banks of the creek, the edge of the forest, or the 

 sand-reef. In the recesses there is absolutely 

 nought but bare trunks and leafless bush-ropes. 

 Even the epiphytes want c< light, more light," and 

 without it cannot exist. Where, however, enough 

 of this precious influence is obtainable they crowd 

 every branch and twig almost to the ground, and 

 carry the struggle for life right up to the tree-tops. 

 Here is a little world in itself a world only repre- 

 sented in temperate climes by a few mosses and 

 lichens, with here and there a fern. Monster 

 arums twelve feet in diameter occupy the great 

 forks, and throw down long, cord-like aerial roots 

 from their nest-like rosettes of great arrow or 

 heart-shaped leaves. Looking up as we push 

 these cords aside, the plants are barely discern- 

 ible, on account of the crowd of other epiphytes 

 which surround them. Screens of creepers, with 

 their festoons of handsome flowers, masses of 

 the mistletoe-like Rhipsalis Cassytha, pendulous 

 branches of grass-like ferns, and a thousand 

 epiphytes on every branch, obscure the view 

 and make it hard to say from whence a par- 

 ticular aerial root is derived. Some branches 



