A  TROPICAL  AIR-PLANT. 
537 
useless  in  sleeplessness,  cramps,  and  convulsions.  That  it  has 
no  accumulative  or  secondary  effects  ;  that  it  does  not  act  upon 
the  senses  like  other  narcotics.  That  it  affects  the  pulse,  res- 
piration, and  temperature,  hut  slightly.  It  does  not  constipate, 
nor  lesson  nor  prevent  the  secretion  and  excretion  of  urine,  nor 
of  the  urates  of  chlorides. 
He  suggests  that  it  may  prove  useful  in  some  affections  of  the 
stomach  and  head  when  it  is  important  not  to  run  the  risk  of 
causing  constipation  or  nausea  ;  hut  that  it  is  almost  as  useless 
as  narcein. — New  York  Medical  Gazette,  Sept.  5,  1868,  from 
Wiener  Med.  Wochen,  July  18,  1868. 
A  TROPICAL  AIR-PLANT. 
By  Charles  Wright. 
A  wonderful  tree — if  a  tree  it  can  be  called — grows  throughout 
the  West  India  Islands,  in  South  America,  as  far  south  as 
Brazil,  and  perhaps  in  Florida.  It  is  not  remarkable  for  its 
beauty,  nor  its  great  size,  but  for  its  irresistible  power  of  de- 
stroying other  trees. 
It  is  an  epiphyte  (Clusia  rosea  Linn.),  perhaps  a  true  parasite. 
Whether  it  ever  germinates  in  the  ground  I  know  not ;  nor  do 
I  know  why  it  should  not,  if  it  can  sprout  from  a  woodpecker's 
hole  in  a  palm.  Certain  it  is,  that  of  hundreds  which  I  have 
seen,  I  never  saw  a  young  plant  attached  to  the  soil.  It  grows 
on  many  kinds  of  trees,  and  at  almost  any  height  above  the 
earth.  In  some  situations  it  grows  feebly.  On  a  palm,  it  never 
or  rarely  attains  to  any  considerable  size ;  whether  there  is  an 
incompatibility  between  the  two  growths,  or  whether,  as  is  com- 
monly the  case  on  those  trees,  it  germinates  at  two  great  a  height. 
On  the  spreading  branches  of  a  tree  it  thrives  better,  but  seems 
there  to  be  not  in  its  proper  place.  In  any  case,  its  main  de- 
velopment is  downward.  When  on  a  branch  remote  from  the 
trunk,  the  descending  axis — root  or  trunk,  whichever  it  may  be — 
is  like  a  cord,  increasing  to  the  size  of  a  rope,  or  a  hawser,  or 
growing  even  larger  ;  rarely  branching,  but,  sometimes,  near  the 
ground  sending  off  stays.  The  ascending  axis  makes  little  more 
than  a  bush,  while  the  root  may  be  thirty  or  forty  feet  long. 
