THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 33 
species of Tillandsia, with whose aspect our con- 
servatories have made us familiar ; and other plants 
looking exceedingly like the pineapple, but often 
of gigantic proportions. The viscid sheathing 
bases of their leaves retain the water of rains, for 
whose sake these plants are much resorted to by 
ants ; and the stings of these little animals, along 
with the pungent point and thorny serratures of the 
leaves, render it by no means agreeable to stumble 
against a Bromel. On ants' nests, especially those 
of a sort of termite — large black globose or shape- 
less masses stuck up in the trees — grow succulent 
Peppers (Peperomiae) and a few Gesneriads. Or- 
chids are far scarcer and their flowers usually less 
showy in the dense forests of the Amazon than in 
other regions with a similar climate, but where the 
trees are lower and more scattered. They seem 
also to avoid trees with pungent or acrid resinous 
juices, such as the Clusiads, Amyrids, Artocarps, 
etc., which abound in the Amazon valley. Lor- 
anths or Mistletoes, so far as I have seen, abso- 
lutely refuse to grow on trees of that kind, which is 
explicable by their roots not merely clinging to the 
bark, but actually penetrating the wood and suck- 
ing their subsistence thereout. Many of them 
resemble the common mistletoe in aspect and in 
their inconspicuous flowers, whose homeliness is, 
however, often redeemed by their exquisite per- 
fume ; but others have showy tubular scarlet or 
yellow flowers often several inches long. Ferns 
also of many species — some of them so delicate in 
texture and so finely divided as to be the most 
light and graceful of all plants, others rigid and 
simple in outline — enter into the catalogue of 
VOL. I D 
