PARASITES. 137 



mit of germination, are formidable assailants of ancient monu- 

 ments. Sir Emerson Tennent mentions one which had fixed 

 itself on the walls of a ruined edifice at Polanarrua, and formed 

 one of the most remarkable objects of the place, its roots stream- 

 ing downwards over the walls as if their wood had once been 

 fluid, and following every sinuosity of the building and terraces 

 till they reached the earth. 



On the borders of the Eio Guama, Von Martins saw whole 

 groups of Macauba palms encased in fig-trees that formed thick 

 tubes round the shafts of the palms, whose noble crowns rose 

 high above them ; and a similar spectacle occurs in India and 

 Ceylon, where the Tamils look with increased veneration on 

 their sacred pippul thus united in marriage with the palmyra. 

 After the incarcerated trunk has been stifled and destroyed, the 

 grotesque form of the parasite, tubular, cork-screw-like, or 

 otherwise fantastically contorted, and frequently admitting the 

 light through interstices like loopholes in a turret, continues 

 to maintain an independent existence among the straight- 

 stemmed trees of the forest — the image of an eccentric genius 

 in the midst of a group of sedate citizens. 



Like the mosses and lichens of our woods, parasites of 

 endless variety and almost inconceivable size and luxuriance 

 (ferns, bromelias, tillandsias, orchids, and pothos) cover in the 

 tropical zone the trunks and branches of the forest trees, form- 

 ing hanging gardens, far more splendid than those of ancient 

 Babylon. While the orchids are distinguished by the eccentric 

 forms and splendid colouring of their flowers, sometimes resem- 

 bling winged insects or birds, the pothos family (caladium, 

 ealla, arum, dracontium, pothos) attract attention by the beauty 

 of their large, thick-veined, generally arrow-shaped, digitated, or 

 elongated leaves, and form a beautiful contrast to the stiff bro- 

 melias or the hairy tillandsias that conjointly adorn the knotty 

 stems and branches of the ancient trees. 



In size of leaf, the Pothos family is surpassed by the large 

 tropical water-plants, the Nymphaeas and Nelumbias, among 

 which the Victoria regia, discovered in 1837 by Eobert Schom- 

 burgk in the river Berbice,. enjoys the greatest celebrity. The 

 round light-green leaves of this queen of water-plants measure 

 no less than six feet in diameter, and are surrounded by an 

 elevated rim several Inches high, and exhibiting the pale, car- 



