FOREST IN PLAINS OF MADREPOEE. 



41 



on the whole tolerably penetrable ; however much the growth and features of the 

 trees may recall to mind the virgin forests in other tropical countries, their impene- 

 trable nature is here suspended. True, there are occasionally considerable thickets 

 of luxuriant Gycas, as shown in the centre of our illustration, a few old trees of 

 considerable height forming an agreeable contrast with this rather chaotic group 

 of saplings. Amongst them are only a few branching specimens, as seen on the 



left of our plate ^1 | 2 and these appear to be very old. Other curious 



phenomena are the apparently not very scarce hermaphrodite individuals, bearing 

 the rising male flowers, and below the already fully developed fruits.* Amongst the 

 forest trees is one distinguished by its slender growth and thick foliage (the leaves 

 resembling those of the ash), which vernacularly is termed "Pai-pai" and esteemed 

 on account of its extremely hard wood. The same remark applies to another tree 

 of similar aspect, the leaves of which are, however, more like those of the myrtle, 



whilst the bark is pale yellow ^9 | 10~)«t A Pandanus ^ ~ 1 which, 



though isolated, is rather common, and, though it does not seem to differ essentially 

 from Pandanus odoratissimus, is conspicuous by its habit, its slender undulated 

 branches, and especially by its long narrow leaves, of which there are comparatively 



few in each crown. Several species of Cordia ^14 | 15 exhibit their gigantic 



growth, and are about this season but sparingly clad with leaves; here and there 

 their bark is surrounded by a network of certain creepers, already noticed in 

 describing Plate VI. J But the most striking of all the trees is a gigantic 



species of fig, the representative of the banyan in this place ^5 | 6 5^. It 



differs evidently in every respect from that of Ualan, the height of which it 

 nowhere seems to attain. Its comparatively tall stem always has the appearance 

 of a gigantic bundle of sticks, the component parts of which must be considered 

 as being curiously twisted around each other, and grown together into one mass. 

 On the upper end of this rather conical bundle, spreads out like an umbrella 

 a crown formed of fantastically twisted branches, which has numerous fine leaves 

 of a dark, rather greyish green. The tree seen on the right-hand side of the 



* I take this to be Cycas circinalis rather than of them, I must direct attention to the beautiful 



Cycas revoluta. — Berthold Seemann. drawing made by our travelling companion, Pos- 



f These quite unsatisfactory notes are amongst tels("Voy. du Seniavine," Atl. pi. 38), which gives 



the defects of the letterpress caused by the unex- a very good representation of this large species of 



pected loss of our botanist Mertens. Ficus. 



to introduce an illustration 



