A VEGETABLE FIEND. 



95 



and hopeless. Sap now begins to course freely up the air- 

 roots, carrying nourishment from the ground to the 

 leaves of the interloper above. As these grow 

 upwards as a small sapling tree, more and more 

 sap is required ; the air-roots, which are no longer 

 air-roots but ground-roots, increase in girth ; they send 

 out lateral connections to join their fellows, till soon the 

 trunk is enclosed in a sort of living net work or trellis. 

 In this hydra-like vice it is gripped and squeezed and 

 deprived of its proper share of nourishment — throttled 

 and starved, slowly but surely, to death. The higher 

 and more tree-like grows the young upstart epiphyte 

 from its aerial platform, the more woe-begone becomes 

 its miserable victim ; until at last its branches wither and 

 die, its trunk decays and rots away, and nothing is left 

 of it but an empty pathetic husk reminding one of the 

 juiceless body of a fly in the arms of a spider. 



It would be tedious to go on troubhng the general reader 

 with a mere inventory of the botanical contents of the 

 island ; for already he may be asking himself, why bore 

 us with a catalogue of trees and plants, which we have 

 never seen and are never likely to ccme across ? But 

 we would crave a few more lines of indulgence, for all these 

 plants are but mere pegs whereon to hang a tale. And 

 so we will merely mention such common objects of the 

 tropical sea-shore as manchineel (Hippomanes), sea- 

 grape (Coccoloha), various kinds of " mangrove," the 

 convolvulus-like Ipomcea, a trailing runner of which we 

 once gathered, accurately measured, and found to be 

 one hundred and seventy-three feet long, Guilandina 

 (the nicker-nut bean) ; the seeds of which are sometimes 

 washed up on the coast of Norway after travelling right 

 across the Atlantic, and, of course, the ubiquitous 

 cocoanut palm (some of which the " laird " was convinced 

 had floated here and seeded themselves) ; while lastly 

 we must refer to the profuse way in which the 



West Indian birch," or Indian skin (Bur sera gumnifera) 

 was distributed. 



