VEGETABLES. 



299 



creases, by sending downwards and obliquely, on all 

 sides, long pendant branches, which divide and sub- 

 divide themselves, ad injini(u?n. It is common to 

 find the spaces betwixt the limbs of large trees, al- 

 3Bost, occupied by this plant ; it also hangs waving 

 in the wind like streamers, from the lower limbs to 

 the length of fifteen or twenty feet, and of a bulk and 

 weight more than several men together could carry ; 

 and in some places cart-loads of it are lying on the 

 ground, torn off by the violence of the wind. Any 

 part of the living plant torn off and caught in the 

 Hmbs of a tree, will presently take root, grow, and 

 increase in the same degree of perfection, as if it 

 liad sprung up from the seed. 



' When fresh, cattle and deer will eat it in the Win* 

 ter season. 



It seems particularly adapted to the purpose of 

 stuffing mattrasses, chairs, saddles, collars, &c. and 

 for these purposes, nothing yet known equals it. The 

 Spaniards in South America and the West Indies, 

 "Work it into cables, that are said to be very strong 

 and durable ; but, in order to render it useful, it ought 

 to be thrown into shallow ponds of water, and expos- 

 ed to the sun, where it soon rots, and the outside furry 

 substance is dissolved. It is then taken out of the 

 water and spread to dry ; when, after a little beat- 

 ing and shaking, it is sufficiently clean, nothing re- 

 maining but the interior, hard, black, elastic fila- 

 ment, entangled together, and greatly resembling 

 horse-hair.* 



