68 THE FLORIST AND 



ful spreading fronds, together with several species of pinnated-leaved Palms,, 

 reflect a sort of gay n ess over the gloom thrown around you by the dens© 

 foliage overhead, the chattering of monkeys and the screeching of parrots. 

 To ascend one of these forest trees is no easy task ; we were often induced 

 to make the experiment in order to procure some pretty Orchid. Tillandsia, 

 Fern or creeper, which clustered its blossoms aloft on the boughs; but the 

 trunks being very high, smooth and wet, with few branches making off till 

 hear the top, which we confess we seldom were able to reach. With respect 

 to what those large forest trees are, very little isyet known by botanists, but 

 from some of their flowers which we picked up on the ground, we made out 

 more than one species of Bombax ; others belonged to the genera Cassia, 

 Bignonia, Lecythis, Melastoma, Inga, and Csesalpinia. It is also very dif- 

 ficult to fall with the axe individual trees from which to procure specimens, 

 their heads being so interlocked with each other, and bound together with 

 roots and stems of climbing plants, belonging principally to the genera 

 Echites, Cissus and Bignonia ; the roots and stems of these twine round their 

 trunks and hang down from their tops, resembling somewhat the rigging of 

 a ship. 



We have said that some pretty Orchids were to be found on these trees, 

 but we would have it here understood, that in dense shady forests the Epi- 

 phytal kinds are by no means numerous, and only solitary specimens of ter- 

 restrial individuals of this family are here met with. The favorite localities 

 for this beautiful tribe is on exposed rocks and the margins of openings in 

 the forests, but more particularly along the banks of rivers and streams, 

 where the Epiphytal kinds may be seen in clusters like crow nests, attached 

 to the limbs of trees, where the plants have a free circulation of air and a 

 liberal supply of light, and even sunshine — the stems, with their singular 

 and insect-looking flowers waving to and fro in the air by the winds. We 

 feel satisfied that the majority of individuals who cultivate Orchids are guilty 

 cf a palpable error in their indiscriminate manner of treatment. A densely 

 shaded glass house, or corner of one, the atmosphere surcharged with mois- 

 ture, and a high temperature kept up, is too often the receptacle for such 

 plants ; and we may be permitted here to hint how mother Nature (and she 

 is never at fault) manages such things in Brazil. In the first place, all those 

 species with thick coriaceous leaves, (and to this class belongs some of the 

 finest of the family) she places on trunks and limbs of trees, or on rocks 

 where light and air is freely admitted and water cannot lodge about the 

 roots. We have often seen patches of these kinds on the wet ground in the 

 forests, where they had been blown down by the winds, yet we never saw 

 any that had been long in this position but w T hat appeared sickly and in a 

 decaying condition, from only having been removed a few feet from their 





