26 



DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS. 



the original large trees had been culled out. It was only on reaching 

 the Organ Mountains, unrivalled in the magnificent combination of 

 rock and forest scenery, that we entered any portion of the " matto 

 virgem" or primeval forest. 



So far as examined by ourselves, the primeval forest could be 

 traversed in every direction, and was very little encumbered with 

 vines and thickets : even fallen timber was seldom met with, except 

 on the unfrequented mountain-peak overlooking the Piedade road. 

 The trees, usually slender-stemmed, rise forty to sixty and seventy 

 feet before giving out their branches, which are upward-tending until 

 at length they spread into an umbrella-shaped summit, with the 

 foliage everywhere far out of reach. The lowest limb of one slender 

 flexuous-stemmed Cecropia was observed to be full a hundred feet from 

 the ground. When therefore, the difficulty is considered of discrimi- 

 nating between leaves eighty or a hundred feet aloft, the flowers, if 

 present, being above and concealed from the observer, it will not 

 appear surprising, that the composition of the Brazilian forest should 

 remain in great part unascertained. Add to this the immense variety, 

 there being probably more kinds of trees within forty miles of Eio 

 Janeiro, than beyond the Northern Tropic on a full half of the land 

 surface of the Globe. In short, a good idea of the state of things 

 may be obtained from the fact, that a shot-gun for shooting down 

 branchlets, and a spy-glass to assist the eye, are indispensable in 

 Brazil to success in botanical pursuits. 



In clearings, where the forest has been cut away, a ree'hj grass, 

 creeping and more or less scandent, soon gets possession ; its long and 

 strong stems tangling together the undergrowth to the great inconve- 

 nience of the traveller. 



In a Tropical country known to abound in Palms, I was surprised 

 at seeing nothing of them in the distant landscape ; the species grow- 

 ing in this part of Brazil being all comparatively humble, and over- 

 topped and concealed in the surrounding forest. 



The most striking objects in the landscape were two species of 

 gigantic reeds or bamboos; brittle and weak-stemmed, in ascending 

 supported by giving out spreading whorls of branchlets, and at length 

 towering high above the tree-tops, like enormous nodding plumes here 

 and there in the distance waving over the forest. 



In all situations, whether in the primeval forest or among woods of 

 secondary growth, entire leaves, more or less smooth and coriaceous, 



