394 



DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS. 



is tangled with Ferns; with a Gleichenia, more or less sub-scandent, 

 and often fairly climbing ; and a nov. gen. Polypodioid, climbing in 

 an anomalous manner, the frond being prolonged indefinitely, so as 

 to creep centipede-like upwards, forcing a way by means of the re- 

 curved segments. A Marattia abounds on the ground, together with 

 a Nephrodlnm resembling N. exaltatum ; and, for a long distance, these 

 and other Ferns are intermingled in such profusion as to barely 

 admit of the presence of a few scattered shrvhs and trailing Labiafce. 

 On the trunks, and aljove on the branches of trees, epidendric ferns 

 continue frequent and in great variety; and after a few miles, the 

 undergrowth becoming less dense, the forest seems filled with a mag- 

 nificent display of tree-ferns : but on close examination, the seeming 

 trunk of tbe Pinonia is found to lack solidity ; sustaining itself solely 

 by a dense outer coating of fibrils or rootlets, that have enveloped 

 some slender-stemmed shrub; or in other instances, have spread out 

 against a tree; or, when several stocks unite around some slender 

 support, forming what seems to be a single large trunk branching and 

 giving out separate crowns of fronds. 



In ascending Mauna Kea, Mr. Brackenridge and myself, at the close 

 of our first daj^'s journey, encamped about halfway through this forest. 

 Several Meirosideros trees were here finely in bloom ; showing, that a 

 universal development cannot tnke place ; such a display of scarlet 

 would redeem these islnnds from the complained of " dearth of flow- 

 ers." The Freycinetia had disappeared ; and the undergrowth was 

 less entangled, yet consisting chiefly of Ferns; Peperomias continued 

 frequent, growing unexpectedly on the ground, and one species, two or 

 three feet high, seeming a substitute for the Pipers of Southern Poly- 

 nesia ; among the Lohelias, one species became a real tree, observed forty 

 feet high, but having a slender maple-like trunk and only a few long 

 branches. Various trailing Lahiatce made their first appearance ; and 

 the same trailing habit of growth was observed in other Northern forms 

 around, all of them more or less herbaceous ; in a Phytolacca ; a Ramex 

 ascending trunks of trees; and a gen. Silenoid, twining for several yards 

 around their base. A yet more anomalous habit was presented by 

 gen. Epacrid. and a Vacclnium ; stout shrubs, five to fifteen feet high, 

 that had become epidendric ; in this deep and dripping forest seeking 

 exposure high up in the tree-tops, in company with the legitimately 

 epidendric Harnel inia. 



At noon on the following day, we reached the first inhabited cabin 



