ORIENTAL PLANE. 59 chiosks or summer-houses; where they retire in the heat of the summer, and regale themselves with their afternoon coffee and pipe of tobacco." Clarke saw this tree a few years ago, and although time has committed considerable ravages on it, still, as he informs us, "enough is remaining to astonish all beholders." One enormous branch, notwithstanding its being supported by pillars of granite, gave way, and this loss has considerably diminished its bulk. This author describes the branches which remain, as extending horizontally to a surprising distance, supported by granite, and marble pillars. "Some notion," he says, "may be formed of the time those props have been so employed, by the appearance of the bark; this has encased the extremities of the columns so completely, that the branches and the pillars mutually support each other; and it is probable, if those branches were raised, some of them would lift the pillars from the earth.”+ Now, in some instances, Nature herself forms props for supporting the branches. We have an instance of this in the black mangrove (RHIZOPHORA Mangle), which grows on the shores of the West Indian islands, in places having a muddy, or soft bottom. The larger branches of the tree send out, in many places, soft lax threads, or strings, which grow rapidly, and hanging down, soon reach the * Earl Sandwich's Voyage round the Mediterranean, p. 338. + Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 198. mud, where they immediately divide or split into roots, and when these acquire sufficient strength, they nourish the shoots or strings, which constantly acquiring by this means size and firmness, at last form trunks that prop and support the branches, from which they originally protruded. The numerous props make the groves of this tree very entangled, and by detaining the mud and other substances brought down by floods, they in time cause the land to gain upon the sea. * But the most remarkable example of this kind of stem, is that of the celebrated Banyan-tree of India. It is named also the Arched Indian Fig-tree, or the Indian God-tree, and is the Ficus Indica of botanists. This famous tree increases exactly like the mangrove, but does not, like it, delight in sea or brackish water. Fibres are thrown out from its branches, which descend, take root, and in time are converted into great trunks, like trees, and in this manner it sometimes occupies a large extent of ground. Forbes describes and figures a Banyantree growing on the banks of the Nerbudda, in Hindoostan, which, in memory of a favourite saint, is named Cubbeer-burr. Although a considerable part of it has been swept off by high floods, yet it still, measuring round the chief stems, occupies a space of about two thousand feet in circumference, though the branches which have not yet sent down roots, spread much farther. "The large trunks * Brown's Jamaica, p. 211. of this single tree amount to three hundred and fifty, and the smaller ones exceed three thousand: each of these is constantly sending forth branches and hanging roots, to form other trunks, and become the parents of a future progeny." of seven This tree has given shelter to an army thousand men. The Hindoos almost worship the Banyan; they plant it near their temples, and where no temple is erected, the tree itself serves the purpose: they place an image of their god against its trunk, and there perform their devotions. Milton gives a beautiful description of the Banyan in the ninth book of the Paradise Lost. He introduces it as that tree to which Adam and Eve retired, to form for themselves garments, after having eaten the fatal fruit; the leaves, however, are certainly not "broad as Amazonian targe." So counsel'd he, and both together went When the fulcra of the Banyan hang from the branches, and before they have taken hold of the earth, they are quite flexible, and wave backwards and forwards with the wind. * It appears that other species of Fig-tree have a similar property of producing secondary stems. Labillardiere saw a number of different species in the island Cocos, from the high branches of which many strings depended, in order to become fixed in the soil, and give origin to so many different stem. 24. CAULIS radicans, a rooting stem. Much confusion prevails in the definition of this It is, according to Willdenow, "when the stem stands upright, and climbs every where, sending forth small roots by which it holds itself fast, as in the ivy."+ Sir James E. Smith defines it "clinging to any other body for support, by means of fibres which do not imbibe nourishment ;" and * Cordiner's Ceylon, vol. i. p. 363. Professor Martyn's definition is, "bending to the earth and striking root, but not creeping along.' The first and last of these definitions are in direct contradiction to each other, one affirming the stem to be upright, the other, that it bends to earth; and an essential part of the intermediate definition is, that the attaching fibres do not imbibe nourishment; a thing quite beyond the power of the young student to ascertain. I think indeed it may be much questioned whether the ivy, which is given by the learned writer as an example of the rooting stem, do, or do not receive some nourishment by these connecting fibres. "Ivy," says the celebrated author of the Vulgar Errors, "divided from the root, we have observed to live some years by the cirrous parts, commonly conceived but as tenacles and hold-fasts unto it.”† But, if we admit that these are holdfasts merely, and that they serve only to attach the ivy to foreign bodies, then we admit that they perform exactly the office of tendrils; and is it not therefore an inaccuracy to bestow on them an appellation which can with consistency appertain only to roots? Were the term clasping used for stems whose roots are fixed in the earth, but which also adhere in the manner of ivy to trees, rocks, &c. perhaps all ambiguity would be removed. For the application of the word in this sense we have classical, Language of Botany, art. " Rooting." |