VEGETATION' OF THE PLAINS. 123 



ishing' rapiJit}-, and seem bj' their wild luxuriance to ex- 

 press their joy and gratitude to the great Author of nature. 

 An endless variety of shrubs adorn the hedges, which are 

 often formed of some kind of Euphorbia or the odoriferous 

 Pandaitus, while cucurbitaceous plants, and a vast number 

 of bindweeds and- other climbers, interlace their flexible 

 branches, overtop the hedges, and decorate even lofty trees 

 with festoons of living drapery. A species of Trichozanthes 

 ascends to the tops of the highest trees, and produces a 

 beautiful white flower with a fringed border, but which, ex- 

 panding only in the night, is rarely seen ; while the abun- 

 dant fruit, nearly as large as a small orange and of a vivid 

 scarlet-colour, is very ornamental. So numerous are climb- 

 ers of this description, that trees and shrubs are lashed as 

 it were together, and the Indian forests or jungles often 

 rendered impenetrable except to birds and wild animals. 

 Where the silk cotton-tree {Bombax Ceiba) and the Decan- 

 nee-bean {Bufta siiperba) abound, the effect which is 

 produced by the crimsom blossoms of the one and the scarlet 

 blossoms of the other has been described as inconceivably 

 splendid. These^ contrasted b3- their black stalks, observes 

 Forbes in one of his poetic descriptions, give a briUiant 

 eS'ect to the western woods, which appear at sunset like im- 

 mense forests in a glow of fire. The cocoa-palm has been 

 alreadj' mentioned as forming a remarkable spectacle on 

 the coasts of some parts of the country ; other palms must 

 not, however, be omitted in this picture, particular!}', the 

 palmyra-tree {Borassus flalelUformis), one of the largest of 

 the Indian palms, ffrowino- to fifty or even a hundred feet 

 high, and surmounted by a circle of enormous tan-shaped 

 leaves. The Caryota, urcns, nearly as lofty as the cocoa-tree, 

 has a trunk sometimes nearly three feet in diameter, and a 

 twice-feathered crown of leaves. All these, however, yield 

 in grace to the betel-nut-tree {Areca calcclai), the po-ka- 

 tskilfoo of the Hindoos, — a palm cultivated all over India 

 for the sake of the fruit, the celebrated betel-nut. The 

 trunk of this beautiful palm is perfectly straight, forty or 

 fifty feet high, and about twenty inches in circumference, 

 smooth, and of nearly equal thickness throughout its whole 

 length. " There is a peculiar delicacy in the proportion and 

 foliage of this tree," says Forbes, " which makes it gener- 

 ally admired ; the Indians compare it to :m elegantly-formed 



