

REMARKABLE CURIOSITIES 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



THE AERIAL PLANT. 



THE burning sands of hot climates, even the 

 karo fields of the Cape of Good Hope, which 

 are so arid and scorched that no water can be 

 extracted from them, are the media in which 

 the most succulent vegetables of which we 

 have any knowledge flourish and evolve; so 

 deleterious indeed is a wet season to their 

 growth, that they are destroyed by it. There 

 are also various tribes of vegetables that are des- 

 titute of roots, and which can only be supported 

 and nourished by the air, and by the moisture 

 which the atmosphere contains. A large portion 

 of the class of fuci have no root whatever ; and 

 it is stated that the Aerial Epidendron, (the JEpi- 

 dendrum flos aeris, denominated aerial from its 

 extraordinary properties, and which is a native of 

 Java, on account of the elegance of its leaves, the 





