I 
THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 
25 
palm, the latter resists the pressure, and seems 
mostly to live out the natural term of its existence. 
There is a noble Attalea, in particular, which is 
often seen growing (as it were) out of a gigantic 
fig tree, but in reality the fig has grown on 
the palm. Parasitical trees of whatever family 
(Moraceae, Clusiaceae, etc.) are in Spanish America 
expressively called Mata-palos or Tree-killers. On 
the Amazon I never heard any collective name for 
them. Only a few figs grow precisely in the mode 
described above. Others have winding branched 
roots, which inosculate with each other, and em- 
brace the trunk of a tree in a firm network which 
effectually prevents its further growth and eventu- 
ally strangles it. Others again send down to the 
ground rope-like roots, at first slack and supple, 
but soon becoming taut and rigid. The way in 
which a fig supplants a Silk-cotton tree in Jamaica 
is an admirable illustration of this mode. A 
small plant of a fig establishes itself in a rent of 
the Cotton tree, and throws down a root to the 
ground, which becomes stretched as taut as a 
violoncello string, and carries up nutriment to the 
little plant above, which drops stronger and larger 
and more numerous roots till it has enveloped the 
Cotton tree and choked it ; and insects do the rest " 
(Dr. R. C. Alexander in Hook. J. Bot. 1850, p. 283). 
See also a graphic account of the mode of growth 
of the Banyan fig in Dr. Hooker's Himalayan 
Journals, chap, xxvii. 
Forms of Trunks 
Were I to unite all my observations on this 
head, I should be led on to write a complete 
