The Naturalist on the River Amazons

24 PARA. Cuap., II.

together by sipds; the woody flexible stems of climbing and creeping trees, whose foliage is far away above, mingled with that of the taller independent trees. " =o = eS Some were twisted

UR ~ Varo SU YAY, sin strands like (@ (7 ae F&F SA SK. cables, others had Pe NN IPR ¢ thick stems con-an J fakes =. torted in every

variety. of shape,

entwining snake-like round the tree trunks, or forming gigantic loops and coils among the larger branches; others, again, were of zigzag shape, or - indented like the steps of a staircase, sweeping from the ground to a giddy height. It interested me much afterwards to find that these climbing trees do not form any particular family or genus. There is no order of plants whose especial habit is to climb, but species of many and the most diverse families, the bulk of whose members are not climbers, seem to have been driven by f circumstances to adopt this habit. The orders

Lac (oe / Leguminose, Guttiferee, Bignoniaceee, Moracer, =. and others, furnish the greater number. There is f. %) even a climbing genus of palms (Desmoncus), the Loe 4/'' species of which are called in the Tupi language, AE As # Jacitara. These have slender, thickly-spined, and flexuous stems, which twine about the taller trees from one to the other, and grow to an incredible WA length. The leaves, which have the ordinary pin- A ae SN \ nate shape characteristic of the family, are emitted from the stems at long intervals, instead of being collected into a dense crown, and have at their tips y a number of long recurved spines. These structures are excellent contrivances to enable the trees to secure themselves by in climbing, but they are a great nuisance to the traveller, for they sometimes \ hang over the pathway, and catch the hat or clothes, Y dragging off the one or tearing the other as he passes. '%} The number and variety of climbing trees in the » ' Amazons forest are interesting, taken in connection with the fact of the very general tendency of the animals also to become climbers. All the Amazonian, and in fact all South American, monkeys are climbers. There is no group answering to the baboons of the Old World, which live on the

Climbing Palm ground. The Gallinaceous birds of the country,

(Desmoncus). —_the representatives of the fowls and pheasants of Asia and Africa, are all adapted by the position of the toes to perch on trees, and it is only on trees at a great height that they are to be seen. A genus of Plantigrade Carnivora allied to the bears (Cercoleptes),

CuapP, Ll. CLIMBING PLANTS. a

found only in the Amazonian forests, is entirely arboreal, and has a long flexible tail like that of certain monkeys. Many other similar instances could be enumerated, but I will mention only the Geodephaga, or carnivorous ground beetles, a great proportion of whose genera and species in these forest regions are, by the structure of their feet, fitted to live exclusively on the branches and leaves of trees.

Many of the woody lianas suspended from trees are not climbers, but the air-roots of epiphytous plants (Aroidez), which sit on the stronger boughs of the trees above, and hang down straight as plumb-lines. Some are suspended singly, others in leashes; some reach halfway to the ground, and others touch it, striking their rootlets into the earth. The underwood in this part of the forest was composed partly of younger trees of the same species as their taller neighbours, and partly of palms of many species, some of them twenty to thirty feet in height, others small and delicate, with stems no thicker than a finger. These latter (different kinds of Bactris) bore small bunches of fruit, red or black, often containing a sweet grape-like juice.

Further on the ground became more swampy, and we had some difficulty in picking our way. The wild Banana (Urania Amazonica) here began to appear, and, as it grew in masses, imparted a new aspect to the scene. The leaves of this beautiful plant are like broad sword-blades, eight feet in length and a foot broad; they rise straight upwards, alternately, from the top of a stem five or six feet high. Numerous kinds of plants with leaves similar in shape to these, but smaller, clothed the ground. Amongst them were species of Marantacez, some of which had broad glossy leaves, with long leaf-stalks radiating from joints in a reed-like stem. ‘The trunks of the trees were clothed with climbing ferns, and Pothos plants, with large, fleshy, heart-shaped leaves. Bamboos and other tall grass and reed-like plants arched over the pathway. The appearance of this part of the forest was strange in the extreme; description can convey no adequate idea of it. The reader who has visited Kew may form some notion by conceiving a vegetation like that in the great palm-house spread over a large tract of swampy ground, but he must fancy it mingled with large exogenous trees similar to our oaks and elms, covered with creepers and parasites, and figure to himself the ground encumbered with fallen and rotting trunks, branches; and leaves; the whole illuminated by a glowing vertical sun, and reeking with moisture. In these swampy shades we were afraid at each step of treading on some venomous reptile. On this first visit, however, we saw none, although I afterwards found serpents common here. We perceived no signs of the larger animals, and saw very few birds. Insects were more numerous, especially butterflies. ‘The most conspicuous species was a large, glossy, blue and black Morpho (M. Achilles of Linnzeus), which measures six inches or more in expanse of wings. It came along the alley at a rapid rate and with an undulating flight, but diverged into the thicket before reaching the spot where we stood. Another was the very handsome Papilio Sesostris, velvety black in colour, with a large silky green patch on its wings. It is the male only which is so coloured; the female being plainer, and so utterly unlike its partner, that it was

26 PARA. Cuap. Il,

always held to be a different species until proved to be the same. Several other kinds allied to this inhabit almost exclusively these moist shades. In all of them the males are brilliantly coloured and widely different from the females. Such are P. Atneas, P. Vertumnus, and P. Lysander, all velvety black, with patches of green and crimson on their wings. ‘The females of these species do not court the company of the males, but are found slowly flying in places where the shade is less dense. In the moist parts great numbers of males are seen, often four species together, threading the mazes of the forest, and occasionally rising to settle on the scarlet flowers of climbers near the tops of the trees. Occasionally a stray one is seen in the localities which the females frequent. In the swampiest parts, we saw numbers of the Epicalia ancea, one of the most richly coloured of the whole tribe of butterflies, being black, decorated with broad stripes of pale blue and orange. It delighted to settle on the broad leaves of the Uraniz and similar plants where a ray of sunlight shone, but it was excessively wary, darting off with lightning speed when approached.

To obtain a fair notion of the number and variety of the animal tenants of these forests, it is necessary to follow up the research month after month, and explore them in different directions and at all seasons. During several months I used to visit this district two or three days every week, and never failed to obtain some species new to me, of bird. reptile, or insect. It seemed to be an epitome of all that the humid portions of the Pard forests could produce. This endless diversity, the coolness of the air, the varied and strange forms of vegetation, the entire freedom from mosquitoes and other pests, and even the solemn gloom and silence, combined to make my rambles through it always pleasant as well as profitable. Such places are paradises to a naturalist, and if he be of a contemplative turn there is no situation more favourable for his indulging the tendency. There is something in a tropical forest akin to the ocean in its effects on the mind. Man feels so completely his insignificance there, and the vastness of nature. A naturalist cannot help reflecting on the vegetable forces manifested on so grand a scale around him. A German traveller, Burmeister, has said that the contemplation of a Brazilian forest produced on him a painful impression, on account of the vegetation displaying a spirit of restless selfishness, eager emulation, and craftiness. He thought the softness, earnestness, and repose of European woodland scenery were far more pleasing, and that these formed one of the causes of the superior moral character of European nations.

In these tropical forests each plant and tree seems to be striving to outvie its fellow, struggling upwards towards light and air—branch and leaf and stem—regardless of its neighbours. Parasitic plants are seen fastening with firm grip on others, making use of them with reckless indifference as instruments for their own advancement. Live and let live is clearly not the maxim taught in these wildernesses. ‘There is one kind of parasitic tree, very common near Para, which exhibits this feature in a very prominent manner. It is called the Sipé Matador, or the Murderer Liana. It belongs to the fig order, and has been described and figured by Von Martius in the Atlas to Spix and Martius’s

Travels. I observed many specimens. The base of its stem would be unable to bear the weight of the upper growth; it is obliged therefore to support itself on a tree of another species. In this it is not essentially different from other climbing trees and plants, but the way the Matador sets aboutit is peculiar, and produces certainly a disagreeable impression. It springs up close to the tree on which it intends to fix itself, and the wood of its stem grows by spreading itself like a plastic mould over one side of the trunk of its supporter. It then puts forth, from each side, an arm-like branch, which grows rapidly, and looks as though a stream of sap were flowing and hardening as it went. This adheres closely to the trunk of the victim, and the two arms meet on the opposite side and blend together. These arms are put forth at somewhat regular intervals in mounting upwards, and the victim, when its strangler is full grown, becomes tightly clasped by a number of inflexible rings. These rings gradually grow larger as the Murderer flourishes, rearing its crown of foliage to the sky mingled with that of its neighbour, and in course of time they kill it by stopping the flow of its sap. The strange spectacle then remains of the selfish parasite clasping in its arms the lifeless and decaying body of its victim, which had been a help to its own growth. Its ends have been served—it has flowered and fruited, reproduced and disseminated its kind; and now, when the dead trunk moulders away, its own end approaches; its support is gone, and itself also falls. The Murderer Sipé merely exhibits, in a more conspicuous manner then usual, the struggle which necessarily exists amongst vegetable forms in these crowded forests, where individual is competing with individual and species with species, all striving to reach light and air in order to unfold their leaves and perfect their organs of fructification. All species entail in their successful struggles the injury or destruction of many of their neighbours or supporters, but the process is not in others so speaking to the eye as it is in the case of the Matador. The efforts to spread their roots are as strenuous in some plants and trees, as the struggle to mount upwards in others. From these apparent strivings result the buttressed stems, the dangling air roots, and other similar phenomena. The competition amongst organised beings has been prominently brought forth in Darwin’s Origin of Speczes; it isa fact which much be always kept in view in studying these subjects. It exists everywhere, in every zone, in both the animal and vegetable kingdoms. It is doubtless most severe, on the whole, in tropical countries, but its display in vegetable forms in the forest is no exceptional phenomenon. It is only more conspicuously exhibited owing perhaps to its affecting principally the vegetative organs—root, stem, and leaf-whose growth is also stimulated by the intense light, the warmth, and the humidity. The competition exists also in temperate countries, but it is there concealed under the external appearance of repose which vegetation wears. It affects, in this case, perhaps more the reproductive than the vegetative organs, especially the flowers, which it is probable are far more general decorations in the woodlands of high latitudes than in tropical forests. ‘This, however, is a difficult subject, and one which requires much further investigation.