364 



SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



Trees are sometimes so strongly fastened, and, as it 

 were, netted in these twining shrubs, that they will not 

 fall, though a number of them should be cut. Some- 

 times they bind the trees so tightly as to destroy them ; 

 but oftentimes they will give protection to the trees that 

 support them ; and, as Mr. Drummond observes, it is 

 probable they may on many occasions prevent their being 

 overthrown by storms*. 



" Pale blue, and bright violet bindweeds grow luxu- 

 riantly and interlace each other. We were particularly 

 struck with a splendid shrub which has a very close 

 affinity with the Trumpet flower, with large bright red 

 blossoms, which glowed like fire in the dark shade. We 

 soon came to a large forest : lofty, slender, white-barked 

 mimosas, cecropias, cocoas, and other trees, were here so 

 closely interwoven with innumerable creeping plants, that 

 the whole seemed to form one impenetrable mass. In 

 the dark summits of the trees, the flowers of the Big- 

 nonia Bellas (so called after the Marchioness de Bellas, 

 who first discovered this beautiful plant) glowed like 

 firef." 



Mr. Drummond quotes a passage from CooFs Voyages, 

 which well exemplifies the support returned to the trees 

 by these slender parasites. 



" On the 17th we spent the forenoon in cutting down 

 a immber of very tall trees, of which v/e wished to gather 

 the flowers, but all our effbrts were in vain. We had no 

 sooner cut a tree, than it hung in a thousand bindweeds 



* Drummond's First Steps to Botany, 

 t Maximilian's Brazil. 



