as typical plants of the tropical zone, because they appear to be
absent from the entire African continent and are comparatively scarce
in South America. They also extend beyond the geographical tropics in
China and Japan as well as in Northern India. It is however within
the tropics and towards the equator that they attain their full
size and beauty, and it is here that the species are most numerous
and offer that variety of form, size, and quality, which renders
them so admirable a boon to man. A fine clump of large bamboos is
perhaps the most graceful of all vegetable forms, resembling the
light and airy plumes of the bird-of-paradise copied on a gigantic
scale in living foliage. Such clumps are often eighty or a hundred
feet high, the glossy stems, perhaps six inches thick at the base,
springing up at first straight as an arrow, tapering gradually to a
slender point, and bending over in elegant curves with the weight
of the slender branches and grassy leaves. The various species
differ greatly in size and proportions; in the comparative length
of the joints; in the thickness and strength of the stem-walls;
in their straightness, smoothness, hardness, and durability. Some
are spiny, others are unarmed; some have simple stems, others are
thickly set with branches; while some species even grow in such an
irregular, zig-zag, branched manner as to form veritable climbing
bamboos. They generally prefer dry and upland stations, though
some grow near the banks of rivers, and a few in the thick forests
and, in South America, in flooded tracts. They often form dense
thickets where the forests have been cleared away; and, owing to
their great utility, they are cultivated or preserved near native
houses and villages, and in such situations often give a finishing
charm to the landscape.
_Uses of the Bamboo._--Perhaps more than any other single type
of vegetation, the bamboo seems specially adapted for the use of
half-civilized man in a wild tropical country; and the purposes to
which it is applied are almost endless. It is a natural column or
cylinder, very straight, uniform in thickness, of a compact and
solid texture, and with a smooth flinty naturally-polished external
skin. It is divided into ringed joints at regular intervals which
correspond to _septa_ or partitions within, so that each joint forms
a perfectly closed and air-tight vessel. Owing to its hollowness, the
hardness of the external skin, and the existence of the joints and
partitions, it is wonderfully strong in proportion to its weight.
It can be found of many distinct sizes and proportions; light or
heavy, long or short-jointed, and varying from the size of a reed
to that of a tall and slender palm-tree. It can be split with great
facility and accuracy; and, owing to its being hollow, it can be
easily cut across or notched with a sharp knife or hatchet. It is
excessively strong and highly elastic, and whether green or dry is
almost entirely free from any peculiar taste or smell. The way in
which these various qualities of the bamboo render it so valuable,
will be best shown by giving a brief account of some of the uses
to which it is applied in the Malay Archipelago.
Several effective weapons are easily made from bamboo. By cutting
off the end very obliquely just beyond a joint, a very sharp cutting
point is produced suitable for a spear, dagger, or arrow-head,
and capable of penetrating an animal’s body as readily as iron.
Such spears are constantly used by many of the Malay tribes. In the
eastern half of the Archipelago, where bows and arrows are used,
these weapons are often formed entirely of bamboo. The harder and
thicker sorts, split and formed with tapering ends, make a very
strong and elastic bow, while a narrow strip of the outer skin of
the same is used for the string, and the slender reed-like kinds
make excellent arrows. One of the few agricultural tools used by
the Papuans--a spud or hoe for planting or weeding--is made of a
stout bamboo cut somewhat like the spear.
For various domestic purposes the uses of bamboo are endless. Ladders
are rapidly made from two bamboo poles of the required length, by
cutting small notches just above each ring, forming holes to receive
the rungs or steps formed of a slenderer bamboo. For climbing lofty
trees to get beeswax, a temporary ladder reaching to any height is
ingeniously formed of bamboo. One of the hardest and thickest sorts
is chosen, and from this a number of pegs about a foot long are
made. These are sharpened at one end and then driven into the tree
in a vertical line about three feet apart. A tall and slender bamboo
is then placed upright on the ground and securely tied with rattan
or other cords to the heads of these pegs, which thus, with the
tree itself, form a ladder. A man mounts these steps and builds up
the ladder as he goes, driving in fresh pegs and splicing on fresh
bamboos till he reaches the lower branches of the tree, which is
sometimes eighty or a hundred feet from the ground. As the weight
of the climber is thrown on several of the pegs, which are bound
together and supported by the upright bamboo, this ladder is much
safer that it looks at first sight, and it is made with wonderful
rapidity. When a path goes up a steep hill over smooth ground,
bamboo steps are often laid down to prevent slipping while carrying
heavy loads. These are made with uniform lengths of stout bamboo
in which opposite notches are cut at each end just within a joint.
These notches allow strong bamboo pegs to be driven through into
the ground, thus keeping the steps securely in place. The masts
and yards of native vessels are almost always formed of bamboo, as
it combines lightness, strength, and elasticity in an unequalled
degree. Two or three large bamboos also form the best outriggers
to canoes on account of their great buoyancy. They also serve to
form rafts; and in the city of Palembang in Sumatra there is a
complete street of floating houses supported on rafts formed of huge
bundles of bamboos. Bridges across streams or to carry footpaths
along the face of precipices are constructed by the Dyaks of Borneo
wholly of bamboos, and some of these are very ingeniously hung from
overhanging trees by diagonal rods of bamboo, so as to form true
suspension bridges. The flooring of Malay houses is almost always
of bamboo, but is constructed in a variety of ways. Generally large
bamboos are used, split lengthways twice and the pieces tied down
with rattan. This forms a grated floor, slightly elastic, and very
pleasant to the barefooted natives. A superior floor is sometimes
formed of slabs, which are made from very stout bamboos cut into
lengths of about three or four feet and split down one side. The
joints are then deeply and closely notched all round with a sharp
chopping-knife, so that the piece can be unrolled as it were and
pressed flat, when it forms a hard board with a natural surface
which, with a little wear, becomes beautifully smooth and polished.
Blinds, screens, and mats, are formed of bamboos in a variety
of ways,--sometimes of thin kinds crushed flat and plaited, but
more frequently of narrow strips connected together with cords of
bamboo-bark or rattan. Strips of bamboo supported on cross-pieces
form an excellent bed, which from its elasticity supplies the
purpose of a mattress as well, and only requires a mat laid over
it to insure a comfortable night’s repose. Every kind of basket,
too, is made of bamboo, from the coarsest heavy kinds to such as
are fine and ornamental. In such countries as Lombock and Macassar,
where the land is much cultivated and timber scarce, entire houses
are built of bamboo,--posts, walls, floors, and roofs all being
constructed of this one material; and perhaps in no other way can
so elegant and well-finished a house be built so quickly and so
cheaply. Almost every kind of furniture is also made of the same
material, excellent bamboo chairs, sofas, and bedsteads being made
in the Moluccas, which, for appearance combined with cheapness,
are probably unsurpassed in the world. A chair costs sixpence, and
a sofa two shillings.
Among simpler uses, bamboos are admirably adapted for water-vessels.
Some of the lighter sorts are cut into lengths of about five feet,
a small hole being knocked through the septa of the joints. This
prevents the water from running out too quickly, and facilitates its
being poured out in a regulated stream to the last drop. Three or
four of these water-vessels are tied together and carried on the
back, and they stand very conveniently in a corner of the hut. Water
pipes and aqueducts are also readily made from bamboo tubes supported
at intervals on two smaller pieces tied crosswise. In this way a
stream of water is often conveyed from some distance to the middle
of a village. Measures for rice or palm-wine, drinking-vessels,
and water-dippers, are to be found almost ready-made in a joint
of bamboo; and when fitted with a cap or lid they form tobacco or
tinder-boxes. Perches for parrots with food and water-vessels are
easily made out of a single piece of bamboo, while with a little
more labour elegant bird-cages are constructed. In Timor a musical
instrument is formed from a single joint of a large bamboo, by
carefully raising seven strips of the hard skin to form strings,
which remain attached at both ends and are elevated by small pegs
wedged underneath, the strings being prevented from splitting
off by a strongly-plaited ring of a similar material bound round
each end. An opening cut on one side allows the bamboo to vibrate
in musical notes when the harp-like strings are sharply pulled
with the fingers. In Java strips of bamboo supported on stretched
strings and struck with a small stick produce the higher notes in
the “gamelung” or native band, which consists mainly of sets of
gongs and metallic plates of various sizes. Almost all the common
Chinese paper is made from the foliage and stems of some species
of bamboo, while the young shoots, as they first spring out of the
ground, are an excellent vegetable, quite equal to artichokes.
Single joints of bamboo make excellent cooking-vessels while on a
journey. Rice can be boiled in them to perfection, as well as fish
and vegetables. They serve too for jars in which to preserve sugar,
salt, fruit, molasses, and cooked provisions; and for the smoker,
excellent pipes and hookahs can be formed in a few minutes out of
properly chosen joints of bamboo.
These are only a sample of the endless purposes to which the bamboo
is applied in the countries of which it is a native, its chief
characteristic being that in a few minutes it can be put to uses
which, if ordinary wood were used, would require hours or even
days of labour. There is also a regularity and a finish about it
which is found in hardly any other woody plant; and its smooth and
symmetrically ringed surface gives an appearance of fitness and
beauty to its varied applications. On the whole, we may perhaps
consider it as the greatest boon which nature gives to the natives
of the Eastern tropics.
_Mangroves._--Among the forms of plants which are sure to attract
attention in the tropics are the mangroves, which grow between
tide-marks on coasts and estuaries. These are low trees with
widely-spreading branches and a network of aerial roots a few feet
above the ground; but their most remarkable peculiarity is, that
their fruits germinate on the tree, sending out roots and branches
before falling into the muddy soil--a completely formed plant. In
some cases the root reaches the ground before the seed above falls
off. These trees greatly aid the formation of new land, as the mass
of aerial roots which arch out from the stem to a considerable
distance collects mud and floating refuse, and so raises and
consolidates the shore; while the young plants often dropping
from the farthest extremity of the branches, rapidly extend the
domain of vegetation to the farthest possible limits. The branches,
too, send down slender roots like those of the banyan, and become
independent trees. Thus a complete woody labyrinth is formed; and
the network of tough roots and stems resists the action of the
tides, and enables the mud brought down by great tropical rivers
to be converted into solid land far more rapidly than it could be
without this aid.
_Sensitive-plants._--Among the more humble forms of vegetation
that attract the traveller’s notice none are more interesting than
the sensitive species of Mimosa. These are all natives of South
America, but one species, _Mimosa pudica_, has spread to Africa and
Asia, so that sensitive-plants now abound as wayside weeds in many
parts both of the eastern and western tropics, sometimes completely
carpeting the ground with their delicate foliage. Where a large
surface of ground is thus covered the effect of walking over it
is most peculiar. At each step the plants for some distance round
suddenly droop, as if struck with paralysis, and a broad track of
prostrate herbage, several feet wide, is distinctly marked out by
the different colour of the closed leaflets. The explanation of this
phenomenon, given by botanists, is not very satisfactory;[5] while
the purpose or use of the peculiarity is still more mysterious,
seeing that out of about two hundred species belonging to this same
genus Mimosa, only some three or four are sensitive, and in the
whole vegetable kingdom there are no other plants which possess more
than the rudiments of a similar property. It is true that, as they
are all low-growing herbs or shrubs with delicate foliage, they
might possibly be liable to destruction by herbivorous animals, and
might escape by their singular power of suddenly collapsing before
the jaws opened to devour them. The fact that one species has been
naturalized as a weed over so wide an area in the tropics, seems
to show that it possesses some advantage over the generality of
tropical weeds. It is however curious that, as most of the species
are somewhat prickly, so easy and common a mode of protection as
the development of stronger spines should here have failed; and
that its place should be supplied by so singular a power as that
of simulating death, in a manner which suggests the possession of
both sensation and voluntary motion.
[5] See _Nature_, vol. xvi. p. 349, where the German botanist
Pfeffer’s theory is given.
_Comparative Scarcity of Flowers._--It is a very general opinion
among inhabitants of our temperate climes, that amid the luxuriant
vegetation of the tropics there must be a grand display of floral
beauty; and this idea is supported by the number of large and showy
flowers cultivated in our hot-houses. The fact is, however, that
in proportion as the general vegetation becomes more luxuriant,
flowers form a less and less prominent feature; and this rule
applies not only to the tropics but to the temperate and frigid
zones. It is amid the scanty vegetation of the higher mountains and
towards the limits of perpetual snow, that the alpine flowers are
most brilliant and conspicuous. Our own meadows and pastures and
hill-sides produce more gay flowers than our woods and forests;
and, in the tropics, it is in the parts where vegetation is less
dense and luxuriant that flowers most abound. In the damp and
uniform climate of the equatorial zone the mass of vegetation is
greater and more varied than in any other part of the globe, but
in the great virgin forests themselves flowers are rarely seen.
After describing the forests of the Lower Amazon, Mr. Bates asks:
“But where were the flowers? To our great disappointment we saw
none, or only such as were insignificant in appearance. Orchids are
rare in the dense forests of the lowlands, and I believe it is now
tolerably well ascertained that the majority of the forest-trees
in equatorial Brazil have small and inconspicuous flowers.”[6] My
friend Dr. Richard Spruce assured me that by far the greater part of
the plants gathered by him in equatorial America had inconspicuous
green or white flowers. My own observations in the Aru Islands
for six months, and in Borneo for more than a year, while living
almost wholly in the forests, are quite in accordance with this
view. Conspicuous masses of showy flowers are so rare, that weeks
and months may be passed without observing a single flowering plant
worthy of special admiration. Occasionally some tree or shrub will
be seen covered with magnificent yellow, or crimson, or purple
flowers, but it is usually an oasis of colour in a desert of verdure,
and therefore hardly affects the general aspect of the vegetation.
The equatorial forest is too gloomy for flowers, or generally
even for much foliage, except of ferns and other shade-loving
plants; and were it not that the forests are broken up by rivers
and streams, by mountain ranges, by precipitous rocks and by deep
ravines, there would be far fewer flowers than there are. Some of
the great forest-trees have showy blossoms, and when these are
seen from an elevated point looking over an expanse of tree-tops
the effect is very grand; but nothing is more erroneous than the
statement sometimes made that tropical forest-trees _generally_
have showy flowers, for it is doubtful whether the proportion is at
all greater in tropical than in temperate zones. On such natural
exposures as steep mountain sides, the banks of rivers, or ledges
of precipices, and on the margins of such artificial openings as
roads and forest clearings, whatever floral beauty is to be found
in the more luxuriant parts of the tropics is exhibited. But even
in such favourable situations it is not the abundance and beauty of
the flowers but the luxuriance and the freshness of the foliage,
and the grace and infinite variety of the forms of vegetation, that
will most attract the attention and extort the admiration of the
traveller. Occasionally indeed you will come upon shrubs gay with
blossoms or trees festooned with flowering creepers; but, on the
other hand, you may travel for a hundred miles and see nothing but
the varied greens of the forest foliage and the deep gloom of its
tangled recesses. In Mr. Belt’s _Naturalist in Nicaragua_, he thus
describes the great virgin forests of that country which, being
in a mountainous region and on the margin of the equatorial zone,
are among the most favourable examples. “On each side of the road
great trees towered up, carrying their crowns out of sight amongst
a canopy of foliage, and with lianas hanging from nearly every
bough, and passing from tree to tree, entangling the giants in a
great network of coiling cables. Sometimes a tree appears covered
with beautiful flowers which do not belong to it, but to one of
the lianas that twines through its branches and sends down great
rope-like stems to the ground. Climbing ferns and vanilla cling
to the trunks, and a thousand epiphytes perch themselves on the
branches. Amongst these are large arums that send down long aerial
roots, tough and strong, and universally used instead of cordage by
the natives. Amongst the undergrowth several small species of palms,
varying in height from two to fifteen feet, are common; and now
and then magnificent tree ferns sending off their feathery crowns
twenty feet from the ground delight the sight by their graceful
elegance. Great broad-leaved heliconias, leathery melastomæ, and
succulent-stemmed, lop-sided leaved and flesh-coloured begonias are
abundant, and typical of tropical American forests; but not less so
are the cecropia trees, with their white stems and large palmated
leaves standing up like great candelabra. Sometimes the ground is
carpeted with large flowers, yellow, pink, or white, that have
fallen from some invisible tree-top above; or the air is filled
with a delicious perfume, the source of which one seeks around in
vain, for the flowers that cause it are far overhead out of sight,
lost in the great overshadowing crown of verdure.”
[6] _The Naturalist on the River Amazons_, 2nd edit. p. 38.
Although, as has been shown elsewhere, it may be doubted whether
light directly produces floral colour, there can be no doubt that it
is essential to the growth of vegetation and to the full development
of foliage and of flowers. In the forests all trees, and shrubs,
and creepers struggle upwards to the light, there to expand their
blossoms and ripen their fruit. Hence, perhaps, the abundance of
climbers which make use of their more sturdy companions to reach
this necessary of vegetable life. Yet even on the upper surface
of the forest, fully exposed to the light and heat of the tropical
sun, there is no special development of coloured flowers. When from
some elevated point you can gaze down upon an unbroken expanse
of woody vegetation, it often happens that not a single patch of
bright colour can be discerned. At other times, and especially at
the beginning of the dry season, you may behold scattered at wide
intervals over the mottled-green surface a few masses of yellow,
white, pink, or more rarely of blue colour, indicating the position
of handsome flowering trees.
The well-established relation between coloured flowers and the
need of insects to fertilize them, may perhaps be connected with
the comparative scarcity of the former in the equatorial forests.
The various forms of life are linked together in such mutual
dependence that no one can inordinately increase without bringing
about a corresponding increase or diminution of other forms. The
insects which are best adapted to fertilize flowers cannot probably
increase much beyond definite limits, because in doing so they would
lead to a corresponding increase of insectivorous birds and other
animals which would keep them down. The chief fertilizers--bees
and butterflies--have enemies at every stage of their growth, from
the egg to the perfect insect, and their numbers are, therefore,
limited by causes quite independent of the supply of vegetable
food. It may, therefore, be the case that the numbers of suitable
insects are totally inadequate to the fertilization of the countless
millions of forest-trees over such vast areas as the equatorial
zone presents, and that, in consequence, a large proportion of
the species have become adapted either for self-fertilization or
for cross-fertilization by the agency of the wind. Were there not
some such limitation as this, we should expect that the continued
struggle for existence among the plants of the tropical forests
would have led to the acquisition, by a much larger proportion of
them, of so valuable a character as bright-coloured flowers, this
being almost a necessary preliminary to a participation in the
benefits which have been proved to arise from cross-fertilization
by insect agency.
_Concluding Remarks on Tropical Vegetation._--In concluding this
general sketch of the aspect of tropical vegetation we will attempt
briefly to summarize its main features. The primeval forests of
the equatorial zone are grand and overwhelming by their vastness,
and by the display of a force of development and vigour of growth
rarely or never witnessed in temperate climates. Among their best
distinguishing features are the variety of forms and species which
everywhere meet and grow side by side, and the extent to which
parasites, epiphytes, and creepers fill up every available station
with peculiar modes of life. If the traveller notices a particular
species and wishes to find more like it, he may often turn his eyes
in vain in every direction. Trees of varied forms, dimensions, and
colours are around him, but he rarely sees any one of them repeated.
Time after time he goes towards a tree which looks like the one he
seeks, but a closer examination proves it to be distinct. He may
at length, perhaps, meet with a second specimen half a mile off,
or may fail altogether, till on another occasion he stumbles on
one by accident.