THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



145 



wood and camphor tree it is in the wood; in the iris, ginger 

 and sweet flag it is the rootstock; in the vanilla, anise, and 

 caraway, it is the fruit ; in the nutmeg and tonka bean it is in 

 the seed ; and in mace it is the aril surrounding the seed. In 

 some species, different parts of the plant have different odors; 

 thus the orange yields one kind of perfume from its leaves, 

 another from its flowers and still another from its fruits. In 

 the sasafras and sweet flag the leaves have a taste and smell 

 quite different from the taste and smell of other parts of the 

 plant. 



A Bulbous Epiphyte. — Epiphytes are plants which grow 

 upon others without depending upon them for food. In tem- 

 perate regions, many mosses, lichens and a few ferns are 

 epiphytes, but it is not until the tropics are reached that we 

 find flow^ering plants of this nature. In the tropical rain forest, 

 however, there are numerous flowering plants that have become 

 epiphytes, notably the orchids, the pitcher plants, and the 

 plants of the pineapple family. The position of these plants on 

 the trunks and branches of trees, prevents their absorbing water 

 as needed, as plants rooted in the soil are able to do, and they 

 are, therefore, obliged to keep pretty close to regions where the 

 rainfall is frequent and abundant. As a rule the epiphytes 

 possess cisterns or other devices for storing the precious moist- 

 ure against a time of drouth. In a country where it is always 

 summer there is no need for plants to store food and, as might 

 be inferred, plants with bulbs, corms, or thickened rootstocks 

 are exceedingly rare among epiphytes. A few species have 

 bulbous parts, usually stems, but these are for the storage of 

 water, not food. A remarkable exception to this condition is 

 found in a new plant reported from South Africa in which 

 there is a bulb of the conventional style. The plant belongs 

 to the Amaryllidaceae and has been named Cyrtanthus 

 epiphyticiis. It is said to be the flrst Amaryllidaceous plant 

 recorded as an epiphyte. The plant grows with its bulb em- 



