SIPOS OR WILD VINES. 576 



bound together, and are ribbed to their entire height. In 

 some places the furrows reach completely through them, and 

 appear like the narrow windows of a tower. The stems of 

 others again rise on the summit of numerous roots, like the 

 bulging-stemmed palm, apparently standing on a number of 

 legs at the height of a dozen feet or more from the ground. 

 Often the roots thus form archways sufficiently large for a 

 person to walk beneath. 



SIPoS OR WILD VINES. 



Circling round the stems of trees in innumerable coils, and 

 grasping them with a deadly embrace, grow in rich luxuriance 

 countless wild vines, well meriting the name of murdering 

 sipos. They hang in festoons from their boughs, and form an 

 intricate tracery of network from tree to tree, — often of 

 sufficient strength to support the falling monarchs of the 

 forest when time has wrought decay among their roots. 



Mere are seen tillandsias and bromeliacea:', like the crowns 

 of huge pine-apples ; large climbing arums, with their dark 

 green and arrow-head shaped leaves, forming fantastic and 

 graceful ornaments swinging in mid-air ; while huge-leaved 

 ferns and other parasites cling to the stems up to the very 

 highest branches. These are again covered by other creeping- 

 plants ; and thus we see parasites on parasites, and on these 

 parasites again. As we gaze upwards, we see against the 

 clear blue sky the finely divided foliage, many of the largest 

 of the forest-trees having leaves as delicate as those of the 

 trembling mimosa : among them appear the huge palmate 

 leaves of the cecropias, and the oval glossy ones of the 

 clusias, countless others of intermediate forms adding to the 

 variety of its sccneiy,- — the bright sunshine playing on the 



