IMiTTSTBATIOHS (25). CREEPING PLANTS. 331 



have many hundred petals.* Poppig also gives to the leaves 

 of his Euryale amazonica, which he found at Tefe, a diameter of 

 about 6 feet.f Whilst Euryale and Victoria present a greater 

 parenchymatous expansion of the leaf-form in all its dimensions 

 than other genera, the most gigantic development of the 

 blossoms occurs in a parasitical Cytinea, which Dr. Arnold 

 discovered in Sumatra in 1818. This flower, Rafflesia Arnoldi 

 (R. Brown), has a stemless blossom measuring three feet in 

 diameter, surrounded by large leaf-like scales. Like funguses, 

 it has an animal odour, and smells something like beef. 



(25) p. 227 " Lianes, Creeping Plants, (Span. Vejuccos.J" 



According to Kunth's division of Bauhinias, the true genus 

 Bauhinia belongs to the New Continent. The African Bau- 

 hinia, B. rufescens (Lam.), is a Pauletia (Cav.), a genus of 

 which we also discovered some new species in South America. 

 In the same manner the Banisterias of the Malpighiacea3 are 

 actually an American form. Two species are indigenous to 

 the East Indies, and one described by Cavanilles as B. leona 

 to Western Africa. In the tropical zone, and in the Southern 

 hemisphere, species of the most different families belong to 

 the climbing plants which in those regions render the forests 

 so impenetrable to man and so accessible and habitable to the 

 whole monkey family (Quadrumana), the Cercoleptes, and 

 the small tiger cats. The Lianes thus afford whole flocks of 

 gregarious animals an easy means of rapidly ascending high 

 trees, passing from one tree to another, and even of crossing 

 brooks and rivulets. 



In the south of Europe and in the north of America, Hops 

 from the UrticeaB, and the species of Vitis from the Ampelidere, 

 belong to Climbing Plants ; while this form is represented in 

 the tropics by climbing and trailing grasses. We found on 

 the elevated plains of Bogota, in the pass of Quindiu in the 

 Andes, and in the Cinchona forests of Loxa, a Bambusa 

 allied to Nastus, our Chusquea scandens, twined round 

 powerful trunks of trees, adorned at the same time with 

 flowering Orchidea?. Bambusa scandens (Tjankorreh), which 

 Blume found in Java, belongs probably to Nastus, or to the 



* Robert Scliomburgk, Reisen in Guiana und am Orinoko, 1841 

 B.233. 



t Poppig, Reise in Chile, Peru, und auf dem Amazonenstrome 

 Bd.ii. 1836, s. 432. 



