52 The Gardens of the Sitn. [ch. iv. 



idea of their native homes, so far as description can 

 possibly supply the place of travel. The earth's surface 

 is like the sea, inasmuch as it is pretty nearly the same 

 all the world over, but in countries where the mean 

 temperature is thirty or forty degrees higher than in 

 England, the clothing of the earth, so far as represented 

 by vegetation, is of a luxuriance we can scarcely imagine, 

 and the variety caused by the addition of such distinct 

 types as tall palms, bananas, grasses, or bamboos and tree 

 ferns to the more ordinary kinds of tree beauty, and the 

 further clothing of these with epiphytes and parasites of 

 the most singular or beautiful description, makes up a 

 scene of immense interest. 



Epiphytal orchids are essentially heat-lovers — like 

 palms they are children of the sun. One may often 

 travel a long way in the islands where these plants are 

 most abundant without catching a glimpse of them ; and 

 this is especially true of Phalcenopsis grcmdijlor a, vrhich. 

 is of aU orchids perhaps the least obtrusive ia its native 

 habitats. This trait is, however, the unobtrusiveness of 

 high birth, they do not care to touch the ground, but 

 rather prefer a sphere of their own high up in the trees 

 overhead. The plants have a charming freedom of 

 aspect, as thus seen naturally high up in mid-air, screened 

 from the sun by a leafy canopy, deluged with rains for 

 half the year or more at least, and fanned by the cool 

 sea-breezes or monsoons, which doubtless exercise some 

 potent influence on their health — an influence which we 

 can but rarely apply to them artificially, and the greatly 

 modified conditions under which we must perforce culti- 

 vate them may not render this one so desirable as it some- 

 times appears to be abroad. 



In the lowland forests near the equator a peculiar phase 

 of vegetation is not unfrequently seen. Trees one hundred 



