478 TREES. 



This lovely epiphyte, which is considered one of the 

 choicest and most splendid of the Orchidaceous family, 

 grows in thick clustering masses, on the bark of the 

 trees ; and I have seen as many as twenty-five large 

 white satiny blossoms on a single raceme, constituting a 

 most gorgeous floral plume, and, contrasting with the 

 dark-green foliage over which it hangs, forming one of the 

 most lovely objects in the world of plants. Large tracts 

 of the island are fringed with Casuarina trees of rather 

 small dimensions, but I am unable to say of what species. 



The Casuarina equisetifolia sufficiently indicates the 

 peculiar appearance of the foliage of those showy -looking 

 feathery trees that are usually seen stretching along many 

 parts of the coast of Borneo, more particularly in the 

 vicinity of the mouths of rivers where the ground lies 

 low. These trees are dioecious, and produce small woody 

 cones, which, together with their horsetail-like leaves, 

 remind one of pine-trees, and may perhaps be considered 

 the representatives of the Conifers in tropical regions. 



Another tree, the name of which so repeatedly occurs 

 in the pages of travellers, is the Mangrove, which renders 

 hundreds of miles uninhabitable by man. There are two 

 species of Mangrove common in Borneo : one of which, 

 the Rhizojphora Gymnorkiza, is a very tall and handsome 

 tree, with leathery leaves growing in radiated tufts at the 

 ends of the branches; and with very singular-shaped 

 elongated fruit, which falls down into the mud, where it 

 sticks with its sharp point buried, and thus becomes a 

 young tree. I have seen many acres covered with these 

 strange pointed young Mangroves, in every stage of deve- 

 lopment. The roots of this kind of Ehizophora appear 



