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ROOSEVELT'S NOTES ON BRAZILIAN TREES* 



Theodore Roosevelt was admittedly the world's authority 

 on the big game mammals of North America — and he was always 

 greatly interested in birds — but his interest in trees and plants 

 was not so keen. His observation of the fauna, however, did not 

 prevent him from giving a thought to trees, particularly when 

 they were striking or unusual. His book, "Through the Brazilian 

 Wilderness" is full of interesting references to trees. 



It was always the dramatic that appealed to Theodore Roose- 

 velt. He was interested in animals because they were full 

 of action. Like Roosevelt himself, they did things. Even in 

 his descriptions of trees it is interesting to note that it was their 

 dramatic element and "not still charm that usually attracted his 

 attention. For instances, here is a graphic description of 

 parasitic fig-trees engaged in strangling a group of palms. It is a 

 picture of still life, yet it is dramatic: 



"In one grove the fig-trees were killing the palms, just as in Africa they kill the 

 sandalwood trees. In the gloom of this grove there were no flowers, no bushes; the 

 air was heavy; the ground was brown with moldering leaves. Almost every palm 

 was serving as a prop for a fig-tree. The fig-trees were in every stage of growth. 

 The youngest ones merely ran up the palms as vines. In the next state the vine 

 had thickened and was sending out shoots, wrapping the palm stem in a deadly 

 hold. 



" Some of the shoots were thrown round the stem like the tentacles of an immense 

 cuttlefish. Others looked like claws, that were hooked into every crevice, and 

 round every projection. In the stage beyond this the palm had been killed, and 

 its dead carcass appeared between the big, winding vine trunks; and later the palm 

 had disappeared and the vines had united in a great fig-tree. Water stood in 

 black pools at the foot of the murdered trees, and of the trees that had murdered 

 them. There was something sinister and evil in the dark stillness of the grove; it 

 seemed as if sentient beings had writhed themselves round and were strangling 

 other sentient beings." 



Later on he gives a more cheerful picture of tropic vegetation. 



"We passed through wonderfully beautiful woods of tall palms, the ouaouaca 

 palm — wawasa palm, as it should be spelled in English. The trunks rose tall and 



* It is a pleasure to print this as a contribution to the movement to memorialize 

 our greatest recent American, whose untimely death removed a much needed man 

 of the hour. The Roosevelt Memorial Association of i Madison Avenue, New York, 

 has kindly allowed, through the courtesy of Mr. Roosevelt's publishers, the re- 

 printing of these notes on trees collected during the now famous Brazilian Ex- 

 pedition. — Ed. 



