I THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 7 
In the virgin forest, the few plants whose 
flowers did not hang beyond my reach were chiefly 
shrubs and low bushy trees of the orders Clusi- 
aceae, Melastomaceae, and Rubiaceae ; but I was 
partly consoled for tlie scarcity of accessible flowers 
by the abundance of ferns and even of mosses. 
However interesting the latter were in my eyes, I 
should despair of giving any account of them which 
would interest the general reader, and I shall 
content myself with mentioning one feature which 
was new even to me, namely, how in warm, moist, 
and shady equatorial forests the very leaves on the 
trees get covered with beautiful lichens and Hepa- 
ticae. The former show usually a whitish crust, 
dotted over with the black, red, or yellow shields ; 
but there are some species which, notwithstanding 
their minuteness, are as perfectly foliaceous as the 
Parmelias and Stictas that adorn our secular oaks. 
The epiphyllous Hepaticae are to the naked eye 
merely patches, or slender intricate threads, of a 
white, green, pink, or brown colour, but the lens 
shows them to have distinct leaves, closely and 
symmetrically set on to the stem in two ranks, and 
flowers (or perianths) of various forms, but usually 
pentagonal or tubular. 
At Caripi 
When we had been at Para a little more than a 
month we were glad to accept an invitation from 
Mr. A. Campbell to accompany his family to Caripi, 
one of his farms, about thirty miles away up the 
river Para. We started in Mr. Campbell's galiota 
