3G4 
MR. II. D. GELDART ON PLANTS COLLECTED BY 
say, e.fj., that the harvest is usually a fortnight to three weeks 
earlier south of London than it is in Norfolk ; the corn really 
receives the requisite number of degrees of heat required to ripen 
it so many days sooner in the one case than in the other. But 
if the necessary warmth be present, great luxuriance of vegetation 
may exist without very brilliant light. I do not find any definite 
reckoning of the quantity of light which exists under the shade of 
the primseval tropical forests such as Colonel Feilden has given 
of the Arctic twilight; hut all travellers agree as to the “gloom” 
of the forests. 
Bates, on the Eiver Amazon, describes “the trunks of the 
tall forest trees rising at irregular intervals from the "water, 
their crowns interlocking far above our heads, forming a thick 
shade bunches of grass, Tillandsia, and ferns sitting in the 
forks of the lower branches the stillness and gloom became 
almost painful a cool, moist, clammy air pervaded the 
noiseless shade.” Again, “ we often read of the silence and gloom 
of the Brazilian forests ; they are realities, and the impression 
deepens on a longer acquaintance,” and yet he speaks of the 
ground beneath the trees as “ carpeted with Lycopodium," and 
of the number of ferns. Darwin, at Eio Janeiro, says : “ If the 
eye was turned from the world of foliage above to the ground 
beneatl>i it was attracted by the extreme elegance of the leaves 
of the ferns and Mimosce, the latter in some parts covered the 
surface with a brushwood only a few inches high.” Kingsley, 
again, in the “High Woods:” “Eound our feet are Arums with 
sunwhite spadixes and hoods, one instance among many of brilliant 
colour developing itself in deep shade. But is the darkness of the 
forest actually as great as it seems At least we may be 
excused, for a Bat has made the same mistake and flits past 
us at noonday.” Mac Gillivray, writing to his friend, E. Forbes, 
and describing the Australian Bush, says : “ Eucalypti of enormous 
size and gigantic fig-trees form a canopy above, while below the 
dense underwood is bound together into a tangled and almost 
impenetrable mass by creepers and parasitic plants, mixed up with 
cabbage-palms and tree-ferns. A kind of churchyard dampness 
pervades the atmosphere of these gloomy solitudes.” 
It seems then certain, by the testimony of many witnesses, that 
luxuriant vegetation does not always recjuire an enormous amount 
