120 



sides are almost appressed. Water is conducted down the 

 channeled petioles into the sheathing base, where mosquitoes 

 breed. The margin of the leaf-sheath is almost transparent, 

 and probably only one cell in thickness. The external surface 

 of the leaf-sheath is exceedingly smooth. Because of this, the 

 sheaths are used to make runways in trapping grasshoppers, 

 since the insects can not climb over them. 



Next in abundance, probably, comes the papaya, Carica papaya. 

 The plant is a most ungainly affair, with a slender but tapering 

 unbranched trunk rough with leaf scars and almost always 



Fig. 2. Typical rain-forest on Alt. Makiling, Philippine Islands. 



crooked, and a cluster of huge palmately-lobed leaves at the top. 

 In this climate they grow very rapidly, and a tree two years old 

 may be fifteen feet high and eight inches in diameter at the base. 

 A cluster of flowers appears at the base of nearl}- every leaf, and 

 the fruits ripen in rapid succession the whole year round. A 

 first-class tree should ripen a fruit every two days, weighing one 

 and a half to two pounds each. In general, the natives use no 

 care in selecting their seeds and give the plants no attention, so 

 they seldom have first-class trees. They ma}' be seen in culti- 

 vation in the College of Agriculture, however, producing at 

 this enormous rate. It is said that papaya fruits which are 



