282 IN THE GUIANA FOREST 



desired it might be supposed that every species 

 would endeavour to reach it in the same way, but 

 instead of this, hardly two have attained their 

 object by other than most diverse means. These 

 multifarious results undoubtedly go to prove that 

 plants like animals are not altogether the creatures 

 of circumstance. 



Reflex action is often given as the cause of 

 many variations, but a purely mechanical process 

 is decidedly inadmissible. When a tree braces 

 itself against the winds, waves, and floods by 

 spreading its mat of roots on the mud, throwing 

 out props or radiating a circle of buttresses near 

 the ground, these contrivances may possibly be 

 thought the result of reflex action, but to us they 

 appear to be much more than this. If it were not 

 so, then why should every species choose a more 

 or less distinct means to the same end. In the 

 forest we have here a tree with doubly-compound 

 leaves made up of tiny leaflets, and immediately 

 adjoining another with great digitate expansions 

 as large as umbrellas. Here is a climber which 

 coils serpent-like round its support, there another 

 swarming upwards by holding on with claws like 

 a cat, further on a third ascending by means of 

 adhering aerial roots, and near by others swarming 

 up as boys get through a tangle of branches by 



