Wallichii_, or _viscosa_. The name of this Malagasy plant was derived
from the word for lightning, on account of the brilliancy of its
flowers; and Sir Joseph Paxton and Dr Lindley have thus spoken of _A.
Wallichii_:--'One of the finest plants ever introduced. And when loaded
with its magnificent flowers, we think nothing can exceed its grandeur.'
I had seen a good-sized plant growing freely at Mauritius, but here it
was in its native home, luxuriating on the banks of the stream, its
trunk a foot in diameter, its broad-leaved branches stretching over the
water, and its large, pink, globular, composite[224] flowers, three or
four inches in diameter, suspended at the end of a fine down-covered
stalk, nine inches or a foot in length. These, hanging by hundreds along
the course of the stream, surpassed anything of the kind I had seen, or
could possibly have imagined. I frequently met with the _Astrapaea_
afterwards, but always growing near the water, and its branches
frequently stretching over a lake or river."[225]
The Leguminous or Papilionaceous order presents many plants of striking
beauty, both in foliage, which is often of extreme lightness and
elegance, and also in blossom. They are among the gayest and most
graceful of plants in all regions. The magnificent vegetation of the
Mauritius contains one of notable glory, the Flamboyant, thus noticed by
Ellis:--
"Conspicuous beyond all the rest is the stately and gorgeous _Poinciana
regia_, compact-growing and regular in form, but retaining something of
the acacia habit, rising sometimes to the height of forty or fifty feet,
and, between the months of December and April, presenting, amidst its
delicate pea-green pinnated leaves, one vast pyramid of bunches of
bright, dazzling scarlet flowers. Seen sometimes over the tops of the
houses, and at others in an open space, standing forth in truly regal
splendour, this is certainly one of the most magnificent of trees. Its
common name is _mille fleurs_, or _flamboyant_."[226]
I have had the delight of seeing the _Poinciana pulcherrima_ in Jamaica,
where it goes by the name of Flower-feuce, or sometimes, the "Pride of
Barbadoes." It is, when in flower, a gorgeous mass of scarlet and
orange, and it seemed to me the most magnificent thing in its way, that
I had ever seen. It does not, however, attain the dimensions of its
antipode, rarely exceeding those of a large shrub.
I know not what the Burmese tree is, which is alluded to in the
following extracts from letters which I have received from my esteemed
friend, Captain G. E. Bulger, of the 10th Regiment:--
"I shall be exceedingly obliged by your telling me whether you are
familiar with the tree known in the West Indies and South America as the
'Bois Immortel;' and whether you think the leaf herewith sent belongs to
it.
"During the cool season in Burmah, the forest presents a gorgeous sight,
from the multitude of scarlet blossoms which a large kind of tree puts
forth; and I am strongly inclined to think that this splendid ornament
of the jungles is, at all events, allied to the Bois Immortel of the
Western World.
"The tree I speak of begins to flower about the middle of December, at
which time the leaves commence to wither and drop off. By the end of
January, when it is in full bloom, there is hardly a leaf remaining, but
it continues one mass of scarlet blossom until March. The flower is
shaped like that of the pea.
"If you can enlighten me on this point I shall be indeed very much
obliged."
I was compelled to confess my ignorance even of the South American
beauty, and my friend thus replied:--
"I first read of the 'Bois Immortel' in 'Waterton's Wanderings,' and I
subsequently saw a coloured representation of the tree in Mr Gould's
magnificent work on Humming-Birds. I think the specific name was also
given in that work, but it is some time ago, and I have almost forgotten
what it was like. Since I saw these two works, I have heard officers
speak of the splendour of the South American forests during the season
of 'Le Bois Immortel,' and have heard more than one say that they
believed nothing on earth could be more magnificent than 'matchless
Trinidad' when these trees are in full bloom. The autumnal beauty of the
North American woods is, doubtless, familiar to you, and I question very
much whether there is anything richer or more lovely to be found even in
South America."
Even the humblest orders of plants have the element of beauty bestowed
on them with no niggard hand. Who would have expected, among the
_Chenopodeae_, and, above all, in the lowly little Saltworts, to find
such a glowing scene as Mr Atkinson describes?--
"We were now on a heavy sandy steppe--part of the Sackha Desert, which
extends into the Gobi--and vegetation was so very scant, that even the
steppe grass had disappeared. The _Salsola_ was growing in a broad belt
around the small salt lakes, its colour varying from orange to the
deepest crimson. These lakes have a most singular appearance when seen
at a distance. The sparkling of the crystallised salt, which often
reflected the deep crimson around, gave them the appearance of diamonds
and rubies set in a gorgeous framework. I rode round several times,
admiring their beauty, and regretting that it was impossible to stay and
visit a large lake, which I observed, ten or fifteen versts distant,
surrounded with green, orange, and crimson."[227]
The microscope, too, will bring out beauties in flowers which the
unassisted eye is incompetent fully to recognise. If we take a scarlet
Geranium, or a purple Heartsease, the eye is delighted with the
brilliancy of the colouring; but on placing a petal of either on a slip
of glass, under a pretty high magnifying power, and reflecting the full
rays of the sun through the object, the rich gorgeousness of the hue,
the sparkling gem-like radiance of the surface, and the
exquisitely-regular form of the round cells, with their clear
interstices, form a spectacle of glorious beauty that almost surpasses
the conception of one who has not seen it.
I shall close this chapter, which might easily have been expanded into a
volume, with a reference to an humble and minute plant, whose fairy
loveliness, combined with an almost unkillable hardiness of
constitution, has won for it a place in every garden, however
unpretending, and however ungenial in its locality,--the London-pride.
This exquisite little Saxifrage, general favourite as it is, requires
the microscope to bring out its beauties to advantage, but under a good
instrument you cannot fail to be charmed with it. I have one before me
at this moment, and will describe what I see.
First, I notice, on a cursory glance, that the whole plant is clothed
with tiny hairs; I take one of the flower-stalks and examine these with
a power of three hundred diameters. Each now becomes a stem of
glass-like clearness, tapering upwards to a point, where it bears a
richly crimson cup, and in this is seated a globule of colourless
glass, just as an acorn sits in its shell. The multitude of these
organs--glandular hairs, the botanist calls them--standing up side by
side, rising to varying heights, and displaying various degrees of
development, is a very pleasing sight.
I turn to an unopened bud, putting on a lower power, and viewing it as
an opaque object, with reflected light by the aid of the Lieberkuhn.
Here are the parting sepals of the calyx, painted with rose-pink and
pea-green, and studded all over with the knobbed hairs just noticed; the
coloured surface is rough with granules, but it is the roughness of
glass, for every knob gleams and sparkles with light. The corolla, a
little white ball, displays its petals smoothly folded over each other,
and their surface has the same appearance of granular glass as that of
the calyx.
But now let me examine this blossom just expanded this morning,--the
very first of the season, by the way. I must have a low power for this,
eighty diameters, or so. Oh, how exquisite! The little saucer of five
oval petals, each of snowy whiteness, bearing its bow of lovely crimson
specks, with a spot of gamboge-yellow for the chord, and the whole
sparkling with glassy points as before. The pale red germen in the
centre, rising into two points of snow, their rosy tips pressed close
together, as if the twins were kissing. The ten stamens, five short
alternating with five long ones, and each bearing its pretty
kidney-shaped anther of pale scarlet. No; all are not kidney-shaped; for
here is one which has burst, and the grains of red pollen are seen
covering its rough purple surface; and here is one stamen from the
point of which the anther has gone, leaving only two or three
pollen-grains adhering. Behind all, I see the sepals of the calyx,
peeping out between the petals, and forming a fine dark background for
them, and for the longer filaments.
And now I say to my readers, one and all,--you may not have the
opportunity to examine the glorious tropical Orchids, or the gorgeous
Flamboyant, but go and pluck a flower of the London-pride, and you will
have before your eyes such a production of Divine handiwork as may well
excite the admiration and adoration of an angel.
[203] Rev. v. 11.
[204] Edwards's _Voyage up the Amazon_, 194.
[205] _Travels on the Amazon and Negro_, 222.
[206] _Voy. a la Nouv. Guinee._
[207] _Amer. Ornith._
[208] Edwards's _Voy. up the Amazon_, 143.
[209] _Martial_, xiii. 72.
[210] _Windsor Forest._
[211] See _Good Words_ for April 1861.
[212] _Wordsworth_.
[213] _Wanderings in N. S. Wales_, &c., ii. 43.
[214] _Zool._, 3060.
[215] Low's _Sarawak_, 87.
[216] Tennent's _Ceylon_, i. 250.
[217] Ellis's _Visit to Madagascar_, 313.
[218] _Nat. Voyage_, ch. xviii.
[219] Poeppig.--_Nov. Gen. et Sp._, i. 54.
[220] Lindley's _Sertum Orchid._; pi. xxvi.
[221] _Himal. Journ._, ii. 58.
[222] _Himal. Journals_, i. 126.
[223] Low's _Sarawak_, 65.
[224] The writer by this term doubtless alludes to the panicles or heads
_compounded_ of many individual flowers; for the plant does not belong
to the order _Compositae_, but to _Byttneriaceae_.
[225] Ellis's _Madagascar_, p. 390.
[226] Ellis's _Visits to Madagascar_, 57.
[227] Atkinson's _Siberia_, 472.
XI.
PARASITES.
Vast as is this round world on which we live, its surface is not nearly
large enough for all the living creatures which are ordained to inhabit
it. Multitudes of animals do not walk on the ground, or swim in the
waters, or fly in the air, but find the scene of their abode on or in
the bodies of other animals. Multitudes of plants do not grow out of the
soil, but attach themselves to other plants, and draw their sustenance
and support thence. Nay, there are parasites upon parasites, and this,
according to Hood, in an infinitely descending series.
"Great fleas have little fleas
Upon their backs to bite 'em;
And little fleas have lesser fleas;
And so _ad infinitum_."
Perhaps the poet's imagination ran a little ahead of his science here;
but the idea of an _infinite_ succession of parasites, like nests of
pill-boxes, is surely a funny one. There is nothing funny, however, in
the thought "that even man," who was made in the image of God, "bears
about in his vital organs various forms of loathsome creatures, which
riot on his fluids, and consume the very substance of his tissues while
ensconced where no efforts of his can dislodge them, no application
destroy them. So it is; and few physical facts are better calculated to
humble man, and stain the pride of his glory, than to feel that he may
at any moment be nourishing a horrid tape-worm in his alimentary canal,
or that his muscles may be filled with millions of microscopic
_trichinae_.
I will not dwell on these; though, if I were writing a book of pure
science, there is a wondrous array of facts of the most striking and
interesting character, connected with the structure, the metamorphoses,
and the habits, of the Entozoic Worms, which I might present to my
readers. It is more pleasant to consider other facts, perhaps not less
marvellous, which, as they do not come quite so home to our personal
feelings, will not excite horror and disgust in our minds.
The _economy_ of creation is remarkable. He who, by His divine
manipulation converted five loaves and two small fishes into a hearty
meal for five thousand men, besides women and children, and who could,
with the same ease have made them a hundred times as much, said, when
the meal was over, "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost." And,
when He spread the earth with life, though His resources were infinite,
He ordained that one object, itself healthfully enjoying life, and
fulfilling its own proper ends of being, should be a microcosm, on which
another range of life should find its sphere, and on which it should
disport, as on an independent world. I have often admired, in the
gorgeous tropical forests, what a wilderness of vegetation a single
tree supports; what numbers of orchids and wild pines spring out of the
forks, what creepers and lianes hang and twine about its branches, what
elegant ferns cluster on the horizontal limbs, what snake-like cacti
creep from bough to bough, what mosses, and jungermanniae crowd in every
crevice, what many-coloured lichens stud the rugged bark! And then
animal life is swarming in all this great field of parasitic vegetation.
Reptiles and birds, snails and slugs, insects and millepedes, and
spiders and worms nestle by thousands in such prolific situations, so
that a great old tropical tree, one of the giant figs or cotton-trees,
is a very museum in itself.
And in my wanderings along the sea-edge here at home how often have I
been amazed at the diverse population, plant and animal, which crowds a
single oar-weed, or tangle! The stem fringed with delicate red-weeds, as
the minute _Rhodymeniae_, and _Polysyphoniae_, and _Callithamnia_; the
tortuous roots studded with Anemones, with _Flustrae_ and _Lepraliae_, and
multitudes of other _Polyzoa_, with tiny Polypes of many kinds, with
Barnacles and Limpets, and sheltering small Crustacea, and Mites, and
Annelids by scores.
Mr Darwin has an interesting passage on this subject, evoked by the
profusion of parasitic life on the long sea-weed of Cape Horn
(_Macrocystis_). "The number of living creatures" he remarks, "whose
existence intimately depends on the Kelp is wonderful. A great volume
might be written, describing the inhabitants of one of these beds of
sea-weed. Almost all the leaves, excepting those that float on the
surface, are so thickly incrusted with corallines as to be of a white
colour. We find exquisitely delicate structures, some inhabited by
simple hydra-like polypi, others by more organised kinds, and beautiful
compound Ascidiae. On the leaves also, various patelliform shells,
Trochi, uncovered molluscs, and some bivalves are attached. Innumerable
crustacea frequent every part of the plant. On shaking the great
entangled roots, a pile of small fish, shells, cuttle-fish, crabs of all
orders, sea-eggs, star-fish, beautiful Holuthuriae, Planariae, and
crawling nereidous animals of a multitude of forms, all fall out
together. Often as I recurred to a branch of the kelp, I never failed to
discover animals of new and curious structure. In Chiloe, where the kelp
does not thrive very well, the numerous shells, corallines, and
crustacea are absent; but there yet remain a few of the Flustraceae, and
some compound Ascidiae; the latter, however, are of different species
from those in Terra del Fuego: we here see the fucus possessing a wider
range than the animals which use it as an abode. I can only compare
these great aquatic forests of the southern hemisphere, with the
terrestrial ones in the intertropical regions.
"Yet if in any country a forest was destroyed, I do not believe nearly
so many species of animals would perish as would here, from the
destruction of the kelp. Amidst the leaves of this plant numerous
species of fish live, which nowhere else could find food or shelter:
with their destruction the many cormorants and other fishing birds, the
otters, seals, and porpoises, would soon perish also; and lastly, the
Fuegian savage, the miserable lord of this miserable land, would
redouble his cannibal feast, decrease in numbers, and perhaps cease to
exist."
I have alluded to the epiphytic plants which are so abundant in the
tropics, and which add so greatly to the gorgeousness of the forests
there. The most remarkable, or, at all events, the best known, of these
are the _Orchideae_, to which, as I have already had occasion more than
once to speak of them, I shall do little more than refer here. These
establish themselves in the forks, upon the greater limbs, and even in
the roughnesses of the bark of the trunk, adhering by their long,
interlaced roots, which look like knotted whip-cord, and forming their
bunches of psuedo-bulbs, whence their succulent, thick, but elegant
leaves project,--a great tuft of verdure; and their fantastic
flower-scapes wave in the air or droop with their weight of gorgeous
bloom. Thus they derive their nourishment from the humid atmosphere
alone, being dependent on the friendly tree only for support and
elevation. Humidity seems essential to the vigour of these and most
other forms of parasitic vegetation. In the deep shady, gloomy forests
of Java, which constitute the zone of vegetation around the base of the
mountains, these plants abound, where the air is heavy and damp with the
vapours that cannot ascend, and where the density of the foliage is
almost frightful; where heat, moisture, and a most extraordinarily deep
and rich vegetable soil combine to produce wood of a fungus-like
softness, and an inconceivable abundance of twining plants and
epiphytes. In those forests, more especially where huge fig-trees
constitute the principal part of the timber, intermingled with the most
tropical forms of vegetation, such as _Sterculiaceae_, _Sapindaceae_, and
_Artocarpeae_, tufts of _Orchideae_ attain a vast size and luxuriance, in
company with Aroideous and Zinziberaceous plants.[228] In Demerara, Mr
Henchman found masses of _Oncidium altissimum_ and _Maxillaria Parkeri_
of wide dimensions, and so densely growing as to defy any attempt at
intrusion; and on the Spanish main he saw the _Epidendrum_ known as the
"Spread Eagle" clasping enormous trees, and covering them from the top
to the bottom.
The fig-trees, which are among the most gigantic of the tropical
forest-trees, and which support an immense profusion of epiphytes, are
themselves frequently parasitic and epiphyte in their early condition.
It is not uncommon in Jamaica to see a network of roots partially
embracing the trunk of some great tree, far up its column, and gradually
creeping round and downward. I have seen an old wall so covered,
presenting a very curious spectacle. The roots of a wide-spreading fig
growing out of the summit of the wall, had spread over its perpendicular
surface, down to the earth, all in the same plane, clinging to the wall;
the chief roots were as thick as a man's leg, but subordinate roots had
proceeded from one to another, anastomosing in all directions (if I may
use such a term), so as to make a most elaborate network of a multitude
of meshes of various angular forms and sizes. These cross-roots were _at
each extremity_ united with the larger roots, and looked as if the whole
network had been skilfully carved out of one solid plank of wood, by
cutting out the areas or meshes, and rounding the component bars; the
very bark that covered the whole was continuous, where the roots united,
as if they had been always integrally one.
The only mode in which I can account for this singular phenomenon is the
following hypothesis:--The seed of the tree was originally deposited on
the summit of the wall, beneath the eaves. As it germinated, the roots
ran down towards the earth, some perpendicularly, some diagonally; but
all creeping along the surface of the wall, no roots having shot out
from its perpendicular. As these roots increased, they sent out side
rootlets, which, still running on the face of the wall, by and by came
in contact with another of the primary roots. Then, instead of creeping
_over_ it, as the roots of other trees would have done, the soft tip of
the rootlet actually united with the substance of the root at the point
of contact, the fibres of the two becoming interlaced, and their united
surfaces gradually becoming covered with a common bark. The repetition
of this process had produced the very curious wooden net which I have
attempted to describe.
A still more remarkable example of this parasitic mode of growth I have
seen in the same island. By the side of a mountain road was a large
fig-tree, the base of whose trunk was about thirty feet from the
ground. Thence it reared itself up pillar-like towards the heavens, and
spread abroad its vast horizontal array of branches across the road.
From the same point there descended to the earth a hollow cone of roots,
interwoven and anastomosed, especially at the upper parts, in the same
manner as those of the boiling-house wall, but forming towards the
bottom only three or four flattened irregular columns. Into the area
inclosed by this network of roots a person might enter, for it was about
six feet wide, and, looking up, behold the base of the trunk eight or
ten yards above his head.
The explanation of this curious phenomenon depends upon the tendency
just mentioned. On this site once stood a large tree of some other
species, probably a cotton-tree (_Eriodendron_), or some other
soft-timbered kind. The little scarlet berry of a Fig-tree was carried
by some vagrant Banana-bird or Pigeon to its boughs, and there devoured.
After the little truant had finished his morsel, he perhaps wiped his
beak against the rough bark of the trunk, beside the branch on which he
was seated. Some of the minute seeds, enveloped in mucilage, were thus
left on the tree, which the rain presently washed down into the broad
concavity of the forks, where, among moss and rotten leaves, it soon
germinated and grew. The roots gradually crept down the trunk of the
supporting tree, closely clinging to its bark, and by their
interlacement at length formed a living case, enveloping it on every
side, and penetrating the earth around its base. The growth of these,
and also of the inclosed tree, daily induced a tighter and tighter
pressure on the latter, which at length arrived at such a degree as to
stop the circulation of the sap between the bark and the wood. Death, of
course, was the result, and speedy decay reduced the supporting tree to
a heap of mouldering dust: while the parasite, now able to maintain its
own position by its hollow cone of roots, increased in size and
strength, and overtopped its fellows of the forest;--_a tree standing
upon stilts_.
A few years ago I was struck with the appearance of an East Indian
species of the same genus in one of the conservatories at Kew. Three
shoots had run up the wall, clinging so close, that the leaves looked as
if they were actually glued to the bricks, one over the other, in the
most regular manner. Yet, on examination, I saw that the leaves did not
adhere at all; the only support was that of the tiny rootlets which
proceeded laterally from each stem, which the leaves concealed. The
appearance of the whole was so curious, with the pale growing bud
peeping out from beneath the topmost leaf, that I was greatly attracted
by it. The base of the plant was in a pot, but the attendant informed me
that this connexion was about to be cut off, by severing each shoot at
the point where it first seized the wall. The leaves above this point,
by their superior size and vigour, shewed that the plant was already
independent of its pot, and that it was capable of supporting itself,
like a proper air-plant, by imbibition from the atmosphere alone,
needing nothing more than support in its upright position, which it
obtained from the wall by its clinging aerial rootlets.