A TROPICAL AIR-PLANT. 
BY CHARLES WRIGHT. 













A WONDERFUL tree—if tree it can be called—grows - 
throughout the West India Islands, in South America às : 
far ioith as Brazil, and perhaps in Florida. It is not re l 
markable for its beauty, nor for its great size, but forit 
irresistible power of destroying other trees. 
It is an epiphyte (Clusia rosea Linn.), perhaps 4 tr 
parasite. Whether it ever germinates in the ground I know 
not; nor do I know why it dan not, if it can spat in 
a woodpecker’s hole in a palm. Certain it is, that of hune 
dreds which I have seen, I never saw a young plant steel 
to the soil. It grows on many kinds of trees, and at almost 
any height he the earth. In. some situations it grows: 
feebly. On a palm, it never or rarely attains to any 60i 
siderable size; whether there is an incompatibility betwe 
the two growths, or whether, as is commonly the case 
these trees, it germinates at too great a height. On the 
spreading aijai of a tree it thrives better, but seems there 
to be not in its proper place. In any case, its main 
ment -is downward. When on a branch remote fromt 
trunk, the descending axis— root or trunk, whichever ! : 
be—is like a cord, increasing to the size of à ropes 
hawser, or growing even larger; rarely branching, 
sometimes, near ibe. ground adi off stays. The : 
ing axis makes little more than a gunn while the root 
ex thirty or forty feet long. In one respect, this is 
true root,—it branches irregularly, —while, on the se, 
ing trunk the leaves and branches are in pairs. 
in order to attain its full development, it seems 6 
that it should germinate at a point from which the ad 
ing axis shall pass in proximity to the trunk ih ; 
and, it has seemed, that if this point be very high, . 
‘circumstance unfavorable to its rapid g gon 
Ai 
