26 



PLATE VI 



UALAN. 



SWAMPY FOREST, WITH BANYAN TREES. 



December. 



Immediately adjoining the mangroves is a description of forest peculiar to the 

 tropics. The adjacent ground, just above high-water mark, becomes inundated in 



rivers and rivulets. A soil thus periodically submerged, of course, never becomes 

 dry, and only somewhat firm by the gigantic roots of the trees occupying it. In 

 Ualan, these swampy forests have a twofold character. Where the underwood 

 consists of the creeping Hibiscus jpopulneus, they are almost impenetrable ; where 

 this is wanting, there is, under the huge bower formed by the crown of large trees, 

 a wider prospect. The underwood is composed of numerous small trees, the crowns 

 of which have not been able to attain the height of the larger trees, and therefore 

 remained undeveloped. The greater number of them belong to Barringtonia 

 acutangula ; the fine drooping bunches of flowers were often seen on the ground. 

 The stems are decorated with epiphytical ferns ; amongst them most prominent, 

 Asplenium Nidus. It is seen everywhere at a greater or lesser height, and imparts 

 a striking character to the landscape. No less elegant ornaments are the isolated 

 Freycinetias, which in Ualan are mostly growing epiphytically, and replace by 

 their long stems the great orchids of the West Indies. They are shown quite in 



which, however, only the stem, surrounded by the smaller ones of Barringtonia 

 acutangula, is visible. The principal figures are several gigantic fig-trees, such as 

 are often met with in these forests. Those here illustrated may be assumed as 

 having established, above the heads of other trees, a connection with each other by 

 means of their branches, as is common in this kind of plants throughout India, 

 where they form entire forests, the stems of which are connected. These are the 



consequence of the high tide forcing back the water about to be discharged by 



the foreground of the picture 



On the left is a large Cordia, of 



