PARASITIC FIG TREES 123 



fluid, and following every sinuosity of the building and terraces 

 till they reached the earth. 



On the borders of the Rio Gruama, the celebrated botanist, 

 Von Martius, saw whole groups of Macauba palms encased 

 by fig trees that formed thick tubes round the shafts of the 

 palms, whose noble crowns rose high above them ; and a simi- 

 lar spectacle occurs in India and Ceylon, when 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 con- 

 torted, 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 steady 

 citizens. 



Like the mosses and lichens of our woods, epiphytes of 

 endless variety and almost inconceivable size and luxuriance 

 (ferns, bromelias, tillahdsias, 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, 

 calla, arum, dracontium, pothos) attracts 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 Nymphoeas and Nelumbias, among 

 which the Victoria regia, discovered in 1837 by Robert 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- 

 mine red of the under surface. The odorous white blossoms, 

 deepening into roseate hues, are composed of several hundred 

 petals ; and, measuring no less than fourteen inches in diameter, 

 rival the colossal proportions of the leaves. 



