IN THE SWAMP. 321 



purple flowers ; and Hydrolea spinosa looking like 

 a great thorny borage, combine with ferns (Blech- 

 num serrulatum), aroids, and heliconias, to make 

 up quite a show. Perhaps this part of the 

 savannah may be a great amphitheatre almost 

 surrounded by the forest, which rises as a sloping 

 embankment at the edge, only broken where the 

 creek enters on either side, and even there without 

 this being apparent at any distance. Its most 

 striking characteristic is the fringe of tall eta 

 palms (Mauritia flexuosa), which stands forth in 

 front of the dense wall of foliage and keeps guard 

 as it were against the incursions of the flood. 

 Like the courida on the sea-shore the eta palm 

 has developed to an extent beyond other species, 

 a power of enduring the flood, so that it can exist 

 and thrive under circumstances that would be fatal 

 to other forest trees. Even from its first stage as 

 a young plant it is obviously well fitted to its 

 environment. 



Its specific name, flexuosa, describes the cha- 

 racter of its fan -shaped leaves, which are particu- 

 larly flexible when rising in the midst of the water 

 before the stem has been developed. That this is 

 a wise precaution against the flood can easily be 

 understood, as it offers little or no resistance to 

 the strongest current. Like so many other plants, 



