272 POPULAR GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



botanists to the Pandanacea, or family of Screw-pines, 

 whose peculiar manner of growth we may observe to ad- 

 vantage in some of the islands of the Indian Archipelago. 

 These Nipa Palms grow low on the ground in great num- 

 bers together, appearing shorter than they really are from 

 their stems being entirely concealed in the morass, the leafy 

 part only being visible to the eye. Supposing we were sail- 

 ing through the Indian Archipelago, we should see the 

 coasts of some of the islands there covered for miles together 

 with social masses of these dwarfish trees. In the marshy 

 parts of the Philippines, in some of the other large islands, 

 and in the Moluccas, there are wide tracts entirely covered 

 with them. 



If we run up a creek, or sail up the mouth of a river in 

 these islands, we often see the Nipa Palms succeeded by ex- 

 tensive forests of the singular Mangrove-trees (Rhizophorce) , 

 those trees which delight in mud ; and we should also find 

 large portions of marshy ground covered with Eice-crops, 

 for, as we know, China depends on these islands to supply 

 her deficiencies ; Mountain Eice too is grown upon the ele- 

 vated ground of many of them. 



Though furnished with but few particulars of the vege- 

 tation of these well-watered and generally fertile islands, it 



