Tropical Vegetation — The Ceiba Tree. 265 



TROPICAL VEGETATION— THE CEIBA TREE. 



BY H. H. B. 



A native of the North travelling in Cuba, will find his admi- 

 ration excited by a continual succession of strange and luxu- 

 riant tropical productions. Most attractive, from its novelty, 

 is the Palm, which in its beautiful varieties is thickly scattered 

 over the island. The royal palm (Elais ?) is perhaps the most 

 symmetrical, though inferior in height to the wild Palms* of the 

 fuclta-abajo, which often raise their straight and slender 

 stems more than a hundred feet above the savannahs. In the 

 mountains may be seen the massy trunks and rich foliage of 

 the mahogany ; and the dark cedar, so agreeably suggestive 

 of "approved brands" and their fragrant contents. On the 

 sea-shore the Mangrove stretches far into the waves, and 

 pioneers the way for new accessions to the soil. The Bam- 

 boo, with its graceful and feathery arches, seems almost like 

 the forest that might fringe Fairy-land. It forms, when strip- 

 ped of its leaves, a sort of monstrous fishing-ro^, almost large 

 enough to " bob for whales," and worthy to have been used 

 by that ancient Fisherman, of whose accoutrements it is said — 



" You would have sworn, had you looked on them, 

 He had fished in the flood with Ham and Shem." 



In some places the joints, which will hold a full gallon of 

 water, are used as buckets. 



One of the most singular vegetable curiosities is a plant 

 called, I think, the Mqjabue. When it first rises out of the 

 ground, it is a slender vine, twining round some forest tree. 

 By degrees it increases in size, the stems and tendrils inter- 

 lace, and cross each other in numberless windings, forming a 

 kind of net-work around the body of the tree, until finally the 

 whole becomes united into one firm shell, and encloses its prey 

 in a living grave. It now forms a large and beautiful tree, 

 with roots, trunk and boughs, having for its core the body of its 

 dead victim. 



* Areca Oleracea. 



