148 Traces of Unity in the 



almost wholly occupied by lichen. Even shrubs are 

 present in no great numbers. Indeed, the only plants 

 which can be said to obtrude themselves upon the atten- 

 tion prominently are certain low growing perennial herbs 

 which, for the most part, do their best to grace the short 

 spring and summer by dressing themselves in large and 

 brilliant flowers. 



In the polar zone no place is found for the smallest 

 shrub. Patches of lichens of various sorts, and clumps 

 of dwarf herbaceous perennials saxifrages, ranunculi, 

 potentillse, pyrolae and others, occur here and there, but 

 the country generally is a plantlesswaste a waste so un- 

 favourable to vegetation that even the few flowers which 

 struggle into existence during the few short weeks of 

 spring and summer fail for the most part to bring their 

 seeds to maturity. 



In equatorial regions, on the other hand, except in 

 those places where a due supply of water is wanting, the 

 mind is bewildered by the undying richness of the vege- 

 tation. On the wooded banks of the Orinoco, for 

 example, enormous trees, with their trunks hidden by 

 countless orchids, aroids, bromellaciae, ferns, and other 

 parasitic plants, and matted together by passifloras, 

 bignonias, banisterias, paullineas, aristolochias, ipomceas, 

 and other lianes or rope plants, the trailing stems of some 

 of which may be forty feet in length and more, form a 

 tangle which is absolutely impenetrable except by certain 

 lanes made by the passage of wild animals to and from 

 the water so impenetrable that, as Humboldt tells, these 

 animals, when surprised at the river side, have often to 

 run for a considerable distance before they can find the 

 hole through which to pass back again into the forest. 

 Here the palm, the banana, the heliconium, the am- 

 momum, the strelitzia, are at home. Here, in place of 



