SINGULAR FORMATION OF ROOTS 



125 



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 twt^nty 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 w^e nowhere 

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

 india rubber tree {Flcus 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 - ^-r'--??..-- 'V ..^v^ ? 



leading to the bo- 

 tanical garden of Pe- 

 radenia, 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 ma- 

 terials that form the roadway. These tangled roots some- 

 times trail to such an extent, that they have been found 

 upwards of 140 feet in length, whilst the tree itself was not 

 thirty feet high. 



The mangroves, the iriart^as, the screw-pines, are equally 

 singular in the formation of their roots ; but those of the lum, 

 a large tree which Kittlitz found growing on the island of 

 Ualan, are perhaps without a parallel in the vegetable world. 

 Each of the roots, running above ground for a considerable 

 distance, is surmounted by a perfectly vertical crest, gradually 

 diminishing in size as the root recedes from the trunt, but often 



Snake Tree. 



