II. 



EQUATORIAL VEGETATION. 



The Equatorial Forest-Belt and its Causes — General features of the Equatorial 

 Forests — Low-growth Forest- trees — Flowery trunks and their probable 

 cause — Uses of Equatorial Forest-trees — The Climbing Plants of the 

 Equatorial Forests — Palms— Uses of Palm-trees and their Products — 

 Ferns — Ginger-worts and wild Bananas — Arums — Screw-pines — Orchids 

 — Bamboos — Uses of the Bamboo — Mangroves — Sensitive-plants — 

 Comparative scarcity of Flowers — Concluding Remarks on Tropical 

 Vegetation. 



In the following sketch of the characteristics of vegetable 

 life in the equatorial zone, it is not intended to enter 

 into any scientific details or to treat the subject in the 

 slightest degree from a botanical point of view ; but 

 merely to describe those general features of vegetation 

 which are almost or quite peculiar to this region of the 

 globe, and which are so general as to be characteristic 

 of the greater part of it rather than of any particular 

 country or continent within its limits. 



The Equatorial Forest-Belt and its Causes, — With 

 but few and unimportant exceptions a great forest band 

 from a thousand to fifteen hundred miles in width 

 girdles the earth at the equator, clothing hill, plain, and 

 mountain with an evergreen mantle. Lofty peaks and 

 precipitous ridges are sometimes bare, but often the 

 woody covering continues to a height of eight or ten 



