100 GKEGARIOUSNESS AND SOCIABILITY OF SPECIES. 



(A) Hence also its remai-kable faculty of growing up again from 

 the stool, a single stool of less than 1 foot diameter being capable 

 of throwing up a thick, dense clump of as many as 20 50 shoots. 



(i) The great hardihood of its young individuals which thrive 

 under complete exposu - e. 



(j) Singular paucity of companion species able to compete 

 witn it in size. 



() The persistence of its foliage during at least ten months 

 of the year, while the few companion species of its own stature 

 are leafless for many months together. 



(7) Its close and vigorous spread of roots. 



(m) Comparatively rapid growth for the first few years of its 

 seedlings as ^oo i as they are established, and of its stool-shoots 

 from the moment they appsar. 



(.) Ability to thrive on the st?epest slopes. 



(o) Greater longevity than that enjoyed by the majority of its 

 companions. 



Eoswellia serrata. 



This tree is spread over the whole region of Central India, but 

 grows gregariously as an upper crop only o i the dry trap and sand- 

 stone hills and plateaux there, and forms aa almost entirely pure 

 forest where the amount of iron in'the soil becomes marked. In this 

 last case, the single circu nstance of the soil being ferruginous 

 excludes every other species. The causes which re.ider the tree 

 gregarious elsewhere n ay be shortly stated thus 



(a) Dryness, poverty, and rocky rature of t'.e soil, which pre- 

 vent most of the fe .v companion species froai 11 ing up to the 

 same level with it. 



(IS) Its aromatic resinous leaves, which save it from the mouth 

 of cattle and other animals and from lopping for fodder. 



(c) The extraordinary ease with which it produces adventitious 

 buds on wounds ; whence in a great measure its unique power of 

 recovery, and, therefore, of surviving the severest mutilation. 



(d) Its faculty of throwing up strong and numerous suckers. 

 (/) Its abundant annual seeding. 



(/) Its extremely rapil growth from the earliest seedling 

 stage. 



(</) Its conspicuous ability to withstand the fiercest insolation 

 and most prolonged drought, owing to the thickness and vitality 

 ot the living bark, its viscid resinous sap and the absence of foliage 

 throughout the entire hot weather. 



