242 IN THE GUIANA FOREST. 



the broad fringe of trees, which stands up like an 

 advanced guard, and extends without a natural 

 break except the mouths of the rivers along the 

 whole coast-line. Like the forest of the interior, 

 it is dimly lighted, but, unlike it, it is almost 

 entirely free from bush-ropes, epiphytes, and para- 

 sites. Now and again we come across a mangrove, 

 Laguncularia, or Thespesia populnea, but the 

 general effect is monotonous, as might be expected 

 from the want of variety. Unlike the trees of the 

 forest proper, the courida branches considerably all 

 up the stem, and is more like a Lombardy poplar 

 than a canopied giant of the forest. The leaves 

 are thick, and of a dark green colour, rather 

 narrow, and comparatively loose, as if formed to 

 allow the wind free play. Then, again, the trunk, 

 especially when young, is more or less flexible, the 

 result of the whole being that the tree bends rather 

 than breaks even when exposed to the roughest 

 gale. Unlike so many other trees under similar 

 conditions, it does not bend away from the direc- 

 tion of the wind ; nor does it, like the cocoanut 

 palm, have occasion to recover itself from such a 

 position. 1 Offering little resistance, it is therefore 



1 When this palm is bent backwards by the wind it braces itself 

 and turns towards it, the alternate backward and forward growth 

 producing that wavy stem which is so characteristic, and which has 

 been accepted by artists as its natural shape. See chapter xiii. 



