FLOKA OF GUIANA. 



27 



The savannas also present analogous differences. Some, especially in the 

 neighbourhood of the dividing range between the British and Brazilian Guianas, 

 are entirely destitute of arborescent vegetation, and these the Brazilians call 

 campos limpos, " savannas proper." But in most of the Guiana prairie lands are 

 seen a few trees, either scattered or disposed in rows. Every winding stream has 

 its fringe of forest growths ; every brook and gorge has its screen of Mauritia 

 palms, regular colonnades, whose capitals are formed of 10 or 12 pendent 

 fgn-sbaped leaves, the resort of whole flocks of parrots. Where the watercourses 

 ramify into a multitude of channels, the savannas are decomposed into as many 

 secondary prairies with intervening screens of the same palms, or of other trees, 



Fig. 8. — Takxttu Savannas. 

 Scale 1 : 3,2C0,000. 



GÙ° West oF GreeriNA/icln 59° 



60 Miles. 



resembling the long lines of poplars which border the meadowlands in the Loire 

 valley. 



The general aspect and the vegetation of the savannas are modified witb the 

 varying quantity of atmospheric moisture or the greater or less aridity of the soil. 

 In the neighbourhood of the sea and of the coast streams or creeks, the pi'ipris 

 or swampy tracts have somewhat the character of the savannas proper. They dry 

 up in summer when the ground yields a scanty growth of grasses, coni inning sea- 

 wards the surface of the arid inland prairies. In French Guiana most of these 

 swamps take the na.yne o( p/nofières, from the jiuot palms (assai or euferj)e edulh), 

 which border their margins. 



