50 THE TKOPICAL WORLD. 



Some of these buttresses are much longer than they are high, 

 springing from a distance of eight or ten feet from the base, 

 and reaching only four or five feet high on the trunk ; while 

 others rise to the height of twenty or thirty feet, and can even 

 be distinguished as ribs on the stem to forty or fifty. They 

 are complete wooden walls from six inches to a foot thick, 

 sometimes branching into two or three, and extending straight 

 out to such a distance as to afford room for a comfortable hut 

 in the angle between them. Other trees again appear as if 

 they were formed by a number of slender stems growing to- 

 gether. They are deeply furrowed for their whole height, like 

 the pillars in a cathedral, and in places these furrows reach 

 quite through them, like windows in a narrow tower, yet they 

 run up as high as their loftiest neighbours, with a straight 

 stem of uniform diameter. Another most curious form is 

 presented by those which have many of their roots high above 

 the ground, appearing to stand on many legs, and often forming 

 archways large enoug'h for a man to walk beneath. 



The stems of all these trees, and the climbers that wind or 

 wave ai'ound them, support a multitude of dependants. Til- 

 landsias and other Bromeliacese, resembling wild pine-apples, 

 large climbing Arums, with their dark green, arrowhead- 

 shaped leaves, peppers in great variety, and large-leaved ferns, 

 shoot out at intervals all up the stem to the very topmost 

 branches. Between these, creeping ferns and delicate little 

 species like our Hymenophyllum abound, and in moist dark 

 places the leaves of these are again covered with minute creep- 

 ing mosses and Jungermannias, so that we have parasites on 

 parasites, and on these parasites again. On looking upwards 

 the infinite variety of foliage, strongly defined against the 

 clear sky, is a striking .characteristic of the tropical forest, 

 and the bright sunshine lighting up all above, while a sombre 

 gloom reigns below, adds to the grandeur and solemnity of 

 the scene. 



As these vast woods occupy sites of a very different character, 

 — hei'e extending along low river-banks, there climbing the 

 slopes of gigantic mountains, — here under the equator, there 

 on the verge of the tropics, where many of the trees, annually 

 casting their foliage, remind one of the winter of the temperate 



