II 
EQUATORIAL VEGETATION 
The Equatorial Forest-Belt and its causes—General features of the Equa- 
torial Forests—Characteristics of the Larger Forest-trees— Flowering 
Trunks and their probable cause—Uses of Equatorial Forest-trees— 
The Climbing Plants of the Equatorial Forests—Palms—Uses of Palm- 
trees and their Products—Ferns—Ginger-worts and wild Bananas— 
Arums—Screw-pines—Orchids—Bamboos—Uses of the Bamboo— 
Mangroves — Sensitive-plants — Comparative Scarcity of Flowers— 
Concluding Remarks on Tropical Vegetation. 
In the following sketch of the characteristics of vegetable life 
in the equatorial zone, it is not intended to enter into any 
scientific details or to treat the subject in the slightest degree 
from a botanical point of view; but merely to describe those 
general features of vegetation which are almost or quite 
peculiar to this region of the globe, and which are so general 
as to be characteristic of the greater part of it rather than of 
any particular country or continent within its limits. 
The Equatorial Forest-Belt and its Causes 
With but few and unimportant exceptions a great forest 
band from a thousand to fifteen hundred miles in width girdles 
the earth at the equator, clothing hill, plain, and mountain 
with an evergreen mantle. Lofty peaks and precipitous 
ridges are sometimes bare, but often the woody covering con- 
tinues to a height of eight or ten thousand feet, as in some of 
the volcanic mountains of Java and on portions of the Eastern 
Andes. Beyond the forests both to the north and south, we 
meet first with woody and then open country, soon changing 
into arid plains or even deserts which form an almost con- 
