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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



wounds in the stately trunks, and will be told that these have been 

 made by passing natives, who use the long resinous tears as torches. 



Other trees which will at once be noticed as overtopping the forest 

 are the huge and wide-spreading Banyan fig-trees. The strangely 

 composite form of the huge trunks of these must puzzle the stranger 

 observer, until he understands the way in which they have been formed. 

 The fact is that the tiny seed of the Banyan tree was* originally 

 deposited high up on the branch of some other tree. The seedling in 

 the course of time sent its many roots down along the main trunk of 

 the host tree ; and these aerial roots of the parasite have thickened, till 

 they have crushed the host tree out of existence, and have themselves 

 become the faggot-like trunk of the Banyan. 



Of the many different trees of slightly lower growth, we can linger 

 to notice only two — the evil-looking and evil-doing " nettle tree " 

 (La-portea), ugly because of its unwholesome, dull, purplish-green 

 leaves, and dangerous because armed at all points with a dreadful power 

 of very severely stinging any living thing that touches it; and the 

 "kavika, " or "Malay apple" (Jamhosa), the beautiful red flowers 

 of which, nestling like bright crimson moss along branch and stem, 

 seem especially attractive to an exquisite little crimson paroquet, of 

 almost the same colour as the flowers. 



Other, but lower, constituents of the forest are a cypress-like 

 Casuarina and a very remarkable " screw pine " [Pandanus), the peculi- 

 arity of which is that the thin, straight stem rises, more like that of 

 a palm, to a considerable height from the ground, and only at the top 

 carries a tuft of quite small branches, but spirally arranged, as in the 

 other screw pines. 



Shrubs are very abundant and of very various sorts. There may be 

 noticed various species of Psychotria, Solanum, Ixora, Eugenia, 

 Eranthemum, pepperworts of various kinds, and an innumerable host 

 of others. 



The whole is matted together with creeping plants in quite confusing 

 variety. There are wild raspberry, passion-flower, jasmine, Hoya, 

 Medinilla, Smilax, a Clematis {C. Pickemgii), remarkably like our own 

 " traveller's joy," and — the last that I can stay to mention — a very 

 beautiful creeper, which would be a great addition to our hot-houses, 

 Carruthersia scandens. 



Ferns are present in very great variety, from the many small filmy 

 ferns to the great tree-ferns. Most noticeable of all of these is perhaps 

 a very beautiful " filmy tree-fern " (Todea Fraseri), in the form named 

 Wilkesearia, after the American Commander Wilkes, who was at the 

 head of the expedition which, about 1840, first scientifically explored 

 the Fiji Islands. A climbing fern {Lygodium reticulatum, Schk.) is 

 very abundant and beautiful, and is much used by the Fijians to tie 

 their houses together, and for many other purposes, and is commonly 

 called by them " the fern of the gods." 



The subject of the epiphytic plants (Orchids, Freycinetias, Astehas,, 

 Myrmecodiums^ Loranthus) would require a whole paper., 



