l8o TlMEHRI. 
clung to the tree trunks and boughs. The plant — that 
is the root and leaves — is so tiny that it was almost 
impossible to detect it when not in flower. The erecl 
stem, an inch or more high, is hair-like ; and on this is 
borne one, sometimes two, large and brilliant red flowers 
somewhat of the colour and size of the flowers of 
Sop h ro n it is gra n diflo ra . 
One more feature of the bush-belt claims notice. It is 
that here the tree-ferns, occurring indeed in the lower 
jungle-belt but there crushed out of all form and lost in 
the too densely-packed, struggle of plants, are here, in 
the greater and freer space, able to develop their true 
form and beauty, and so rise with stout ere6l stems to 
bear far overhead their regularly-shaped, majestic crowns 
of thickly growing fronds. 
Next, of the rock and tree-belt all that need be said is 
that the same species as in the lower belt seem to occur, 
but that these are here for some rather obscure reason, 
represented by larger and more developed individuals ; 
that the ferns, both the tree-ferns and the more dwarf 
species, and one of the palms Genoma [No. 382], be- 
come yet more abundant ; and that the mossy universal 
covering which I have already dwelt on, as occurring 
below, here becomes so immensely dense and all- 
pervading — the mosses are so deep on rock and ground, 
hang in such dense long masses from all trees and 
branches — as to produce on the mind of one who pene- 
trates into that remarkable spot a wonderful and extra- 
ordinary effect of perfect and entire stillness, as though 
all things being wrapped in so dense and soft a 
covering, all sound, and all possibility of sound, was 
stilled, deadened, and annihilated. 
