THE SNAKE TEEE. 



139 



The Delabechea, or bottle-tree, discovered by Mr. Mitchell in 

 tropical Australia, has the same lumpish mode of growth. Its 

 wood is of so loose a texture that, when boiling water is poured 

 over its shavings, a clear jelly is formed, and becomes a thick 

 viscid mass. 



In other trees which, struggling upwards to air and light, 

 attain a prodigious altitude, or from their enormous girth and 

 the colossal expansion of their branches require steadying from 

 beneath, we find buttresses projecting like rays from all sides of 

 the trunk. They are frequently from six to twelve inches thick, 

 and project from five to fifteen feet, and, as they ascend, gradu- 

 ally sink into the bole and disappear at the height of from ten 

 to twenty feet from the ground. By the firm resistance which 

 they offer below, the trees are effectually protected from the 

 leverage of the crown, by which they would otherwise be up- 

 rooted. Some of these buttresses are so smooth and flat as 

 almost to resemble sawn planks ; as, for instance, in the Bombax 

 Ceiba, one of the most remarkable examples of this wonderful 

 device of Nature. 



In other cases we find the roots fantastically spreading and 

 revelling in a variety of grotesque shapes, such as we nowhere 

 find in the less exuberant vegetation of Europe. Thus, in the 

 india-rubber tree {Ficus elastica), masses of the roots appear 

 above ground, extending on all sides from the base, and writh- 

 ing over the surface in serpentine undulations, so that the 

 Indian villagers give it the name of the snake-tree. Sir Emerson 

 Tennent mentions an 

 avenue of these trees 

 leading to the bo- 

 tanical garden of 

 Peradenia,in Ceylon, 

 the roots of which 

 meet from either side 

 of the road, and have 

 so covered the sur- 

 face as to form a 

 wooden framework, 

 the interstices of 

 which retain the materials tliat form the roadway. These 

 tangled roots sometimes trail to such an extent that they 



SXAKE-TREE. 



