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tially analogous to that of the stag-horn fern, Platy cerium, and 

 is also imitated in a more irregular way by the bird's-nest fern, 

 Aspleniiim nidus, and by various other epiphytes. 



Dischidia Rafflesiana is the most remarkable species. Here 

 the leaA'es are modified into urn-like pitchers, flattened-fusiform in 

 shape, an inch in width and three or four inches long. These are 

 generally grouped in clusters of five or six, and are spreading or 

 pendent on their short petioles. Most of them contain water 

 collected from the daily rains, and into them grow the roots. 

 The habit of collecting water in similar cisterns may also be 

 observed in various bromeliads, but this is the only plant in which 

 water is absorbed from the cisterns by roots of the usual type. 

 All of these species are common in the garden, and are frequently 

 seen growing wild on various sorts of trees. Those with appressed 

 convex leaves appear to be limited to the trunks of trees, while 

 D. Rafflesiana may establish itself among the branches. In fact, 

 the first one found was on the branches of a Pandanus which had 

 been cut down. 



Beyond the Island in the Proeftuin, are seen several species of 

 economic plants of interest. The main avenue is shaded with 

 some rubber trees, Hevea brasiliensis, now about ten years old, 

 but already thirty feet high and tapped for rubber. Their 

 fruit, much like that of a castor bean but twice as large, appar- 

 ently explodes while still on the tree, since fruits with sound 

 seeds are never found on the ground beneath. There is also a 

 plantation of Erythroxylon coca, the source of the drug cocaine. 

 These small shrubs look very much like our American Nemopan- 

 thus mucronata. 



Returning now to the mainland, and turning at the bridge 

 toward the farther end of the garden, the visitor enters a col- 

 lection of forest trees, set out in no regular order. In the lower 

 ground there are several species of figs, some of considerable size 

 and with a great development of buttress roots. These roots 

 extend out in every direction, are generally crooked and freely 

 branched, and lack entirely the size and the peculiar flatness of 

 the figs of Philippine forests. With them are a few very old 

 canary trees, one of which covers with its buttress roots a ground 



