460 TRINIDAD. 



As has already been remarked, the woods of the plains do 

 not differ very materially from those of the lower mountains. 

 There are only two species of our forest trees that are gregarious 

 in growth, and that may be termed social the Mora, which 

 covers extensive tracts of land in different parts of the island ; 

 and the mangrove (JRhizophora) , which grows in the saline 

 swamps that border the sea ; the rhizophora is, however, 

 generally accompanied by the other species of mangrove, viz., 

 the Avicennia and the Oonocarpus. The conocarpus appears to 

 be a salt-plant, for I also found it near the mud-volcanoes, 

 together with a few other shrubs, and amarantaceous plants which 

 thrive near the sea-shore. 



Next to our forests, our so-called " natural savannahs " 

 deserve notice. Four different classes may be distinguished, all 

 more or less denuded of trees and shrubs. The first class is the 

 periodically inundated savannahs of the coast, immediately in the 

 rear of the mangrove forests of Caroni and Chaguanas. Coarse 

 grasses and cyperoids, together with a slight sprinkling of convol- 

 vuli, hibisci, sesbanise, echites, and a few others, characterise 

 these tracts ; as they stretch towards the interior and the high woods, 

 these plants become mixed up with grasses of a finer kind 

 an Ambrosia, Malachra, Mimosa, &c. Next to the above comes 

 the savannah on the eastern side of the island, at a rather con- 

 siderable distance from the sea. Here again the principal 

 growth is of grasses and cyperoids, but of a different kind, though 

 those of the former are not altogether excluded ; but the finer 

 sorts are more prevalent here, and the whole district bears a 

 different appearance, particularly as this savannah is enlivened by 

 the mauritia palm. There exists, in its vicinity, an extensive 

 swamp covered with many trees, among which I have remarked 

 the Virola in great numbers, together with the Moronolea, of 

 Aublet. Here also is to be found a splendid Orinum, from eight 

 to ten feet high when in bloom, the umbel of flowers measuring 

 more than a foot in diameter. 



The savannah of Aripo differs from the above-mentioned ; it 

 is, in the interior, subject to periodical but partial inundations, 

 and covered with grasses and herbs altogether different, and, to 

 the naturalist, of a much higher interest than the former speci- 

 mens. The soil is a kind of sand covered with vegetable detritus. 

 It is impossible to describe the feelings of the botanist when 



