TREES COVERED WITH ORCHIDS. 487 



pastures, growing on the trunk and larger branches 

 in great luxuriance, at the height of fifteen to twenty 

 feet; one bunch that I procured comprising forty- 

 two bulbs, cohering together. E. fragrans and E. 

 cochleatiim also grow on fruit-trees in the mountain 

 pens, eight or ten feet from the ground. lonopsis 

 I found only in the situation above-mentioned, on 

 the trunks of forest trees, a few feet above the 

 ground. 



In the tall woods on Bluefields Mountains, almost 

 every tree, from the thickness of one's arm upwards, 

 is found to bear its bunch of Orchidecs, frequently 

 four or five species growing on the same tree. The 

 trunk is the most common situation on the tree, but 

 in very large trees the forks and great horizontal 

 limbs are likewise studded with these and other 

 parasites, Tillandsics, sessile and caulescent Ferns, 

 Jungermannice, &c. I was surprised and delighted 

 at the number of minute species, some with tiny 

 bulbs, others with small oval, alternate, almost pin- 

 nate leaves, and others long and grass-like, which, in 

 company with the larger and more common kinds, 

 crowded the trunk of an enormous Fig- tree that had 

 been recently felled on the top of the Bluefields ridge. 

 The massive, pillar-like stem, sixty or seventy feet 

 long without a branch, was studded from end to end, 

 and on all sides of its surface, with these delicate 

 little parasites, which also spread themselves upon the 

 great arms. On the lower mountains the huge Cotton- 

 tree {Eriodendro7i) forms a perfect nursery of Orchi- 

 dece as well as Bromeliacece. Of terrestrial species, 

 both the kinds of Bletia were growing on the bare 



