The Struggle for Life in the Swamp. 243 
current, a lesser depth of pegass, or a poorer soil, other 
plants manage to exist where this cannot. Where the 
depth of water is not great a few shrubs of Jussioea 
nervosa^ Palicourea crocea y Rhynchanthera, and Hydro- 
lea spznosa, are scattered among the sedges, grasses and 
ferns (Blechnum serrulatum.) Here are also clumps of 
the eta palm which relieve the monotony of the other- 
wise almost dead level. The struggle for life in such 
places is not so fierce, but it is nevertheless quite obvious. 
No single species has come to the front, but a goodly 
number from several families accommodate themselves 
to the local conditions. Few plants are so impatient of 
stagnating water as ferns, yet here the Blechnum is 
quite at home, while the Rhynchantheras are equally 
different from the other Melastomacece. 
Creeks flow from all these savannahs and in many 
places these are fringed by lines of trees. But unlike 
those of the forest, these are not tall giants with great 
canopies of foliage, but straggling dwarfs with gnarled 
stems and limbs. Like all marsh plants they spread 
their roots to great distances, and have no proper tap 
roots. Even the leaves are comparatively few and 
scattered, and altogether the trees appear sickly and 
weak. On a closer examination however the naturalist 
sees how beautifully they are adapted to their surround- 
ings. Sometimes the water rises in these places to a 
considerable height, and anything like a dense mass of 
foliage would tend to uproot the tree by its resistance to 
the flood and its currents. As they are, however, there is 
very little obstruction and it rarely happens that one 
is carried away. 
Where old trees depend on their stiffness, the younger 
