546 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
stems being more branchy and the leaves larger. Others shoot 
up into lofty stipes of graceful appearance. At first they are up- 
right as a lance, terminating in a point, with only one leaf, 
resembling a large scale, at each internode; when these fall, 
a short branchy crown springs from their axilla bearing the true 
leaves. The stems of the Bamboos are thus decorated with verti- 
cillate leaves, at regular intervals, which are naturally curved, and 
form elegant arbours between the trees. It is to the Lianes 
principally that tropical forests are indebted for their picturesque 
beauty, and these are the source of the most varied effects. The 
Honeysuckle and the Ivy give but a faint idea of the appearance 
presented by the crowd of climbing and creeping plants belonging to 
many different families. These are Bignoniacee, Bauhinia, Cissus, 
and Hippocrateas, and while.they all require a support, they each 
have notwithstanding a bearing peculiar to themselves. One 
of those climbing parasites will encircle the trunk of the largest 
trees to a prodigious height; the marks left by the old leaves 
seeming in their lozenge-shaped design to resemble the skin of a 
serpent. From this parasitic stem spring large leaves of a glossy 
green, while its lower parts give birth to slender roots, which 
descend again to the earth straight as a plum-line. The tree which 
bears the Spanish name of Cipo-Matador, the Murderous Liane, 
has a trunk as straight as our poplar, but so slight that it cannot 
support itself alone, but must find support on a neighbouring 
-tree more robust than itself. . It presses against its stem, aided by 
its aerial roots, which embrace it at intervals like so many flexible _ 
osiers, by which it secures itself and defies the most.terrible hur- 
ricanes. Some Lianes resemble waving ribbons, others are twisted 
in large spirals, or hanging in festoons, spreading between thetrees, : 
and darting from one to another, twining round them and forming 
into masses of stem, leaves; and flowers, where the observer often — 
finds it difficult to render to each vegetable what belongs to it. 
Thousands of different species of shrubs, Melastomaces, Borra- 
ginaceze, Pipers, and Acanthaces, springing up round the roots: 
_ of large trees, fill up the intervals left between them. Tillandsias ~ 
and Orchids, with flowers of strange and whimsical shape, make 
their appearance, and these often serve as supports to other para- 
sites. Numerous brooks ly run — these ree: ie 
