CLIMBING PLANTS. 



37 



soursop, papaw, and many others. This list of useful 

 products from the exogenous trees alone of the equatorial 

 forests, excluding those from the palms, shrubs, herbs, 

 and creepers, might have been multiplied many times 

 over by the introduction of articles whose names would 

 be known only to those interested in special arts or 

 sciences ; but imperfect as it is, it will serve to afford a 

 notion of the value of this vast treasure-house which is 

 as yet but very partially explored. 



The Climbing Plants of the Equatorial Forests. — Next 

 to the trees themselves the most conspicuous and 

 remarkable feature of the tropical forests is the profusion 

 of woody creepers and climbers that everywhere meet the 

 eye. They twist around the slenderer stems, they drop 

 down pendent from the branches, they stretch tightly from 

 tree to tree, they hang looped in huge festoons from bough 

 to bough, they twist in great serpentine coils or lie in en- 

 tangled masses on the ground. Some are slender, smooth, 

 and root-like ; others are rugged or knotted; often they are 

 twined together into veritable cables ; some are flat like 

 ribands, others are curiously waved and indented. 

 Where they spring from or how they grow is at first a 

 complete puzzle. They pass overhead from tree to tree, 

 they stretch in tight cordage like the rigging of a ship 

 from the top of one tree to the base of another, and the 

 upper regions of the forest often seem full of them 

 without our being able to detect any earth-growing stem 

 from which they arise. The conclusion is at length 

 forced upon us that these woody climbers must possess 

 the two qualities of very long life and almost indefinite 

 longitudinal growth, for by these suppositions alone can 

 we explain their characteristic features. The growth of 



