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the conditions of shade and moisture upon which the main- 

 tenance of the forest depends. Along a few of these trails a 

 handful of exotics have been planted, mostly Chrysalidocarpus 

 liitescens, various species of Pandanus, a Codiaeiim or two, here 

 and there the noble royal palm, and Asiatic bamboos. But the 

 great bulk of the area is exactly what the conservationists 

 pine for, — a piece of wild vegetation rescued from the wild and 

 let alone. 



As in the jungle the first thing that strikes one is the enor- 

 mous number of species and the rarity of the trees, at least, 

 that occcur in any very definite stands. Easily the dominant 

 tree is the sumauma as the Brazilians call the silk cotton tree 

 (Ceiba pentandra) . Dominant as to numbers it is also the tallest 

 and largest tree in the Bosque. Some specimens have the im- 

 mense flanking buttresses, spreading 15-20 feet away from the 

 trunk proper, and extending upwards so high that the clear 

 bole of the tree is not reached until 20 feet from the ground. 

 In the coves made by these buttresses there is an accumulation 

 of humus and half rotten leaves often three to four feet deep, 

 usually crowned by a mass of ferns, Marantaceae, Selaguiella, 

 and often a few low shrubs of the Melastomaceae with showy 

 pink flowers. With the coves large enough to stable a horse, 

 sometimes a team of them, the tree appears to rise from a great 

 heaping mound of verdure separated by these buttresses, 

 which may extend a long way from the trunk but are usually 

 less than six inches thick, and often only three inches. 



The sumaumas, and several other Bombacaceae, together 

 with trees of the Lauraceae Fabaceae, Caesalpiniaceae Cary- 

 ocaraceae, and perhaps a dozen others make up the topmost 

 tier of the forest canopy. For this forest has two and sometimes 

 three recognizable tiers, a characteristic of the Amazonian 

 rain-forest often noted by Warming, Huber and others. Far up in 

 the uppermost tier are epiphytic aroids, appearing through the 

 binoculars as of the Dieffenbachia, Anthuriiim and Philodendron 

 type. But enormously greater in numbers of individuals and 

 species are the Bromeliaceae, some of them with showy scarlet 

 and yellow spikes often two or three feet long. Less common are 

 orchids none of which were in flower at this season (January), 

 and no epiphytic cacti of the Rhipsalis type appear to be here, 

 perhaps because the forest is so constantly moist. Just how wet 



