PDF - Wallace Online

IIEQUATORIAL VEGETATIONThe Equatorial Forest-Belt and its causes General features of the EquatorialForests Characteristics of the Larger Forest-trees FloweringTrunks and their probable cause Uses of Equatorial Forest-treesThe Climbing Plants of the Equatorial Forests Palms Uses of Palmtreesand their Products Ferns Ginger-worts and wild BananasArums Screw-pines Orchids Bamboos Uses of the BambooMangroves Sensitive-plants Comparative Scarcity of FlowersConcluding Remarks on Tropical Vegetation.IN the following sketch of the characteristics of vegetable lifein the equatorial zone, it is not intended to enter into anyscientific details or to treat the subject in the slightest degreefrom a botanical point of view ;but merely to describe thosegeneral features of vegetation which are almost or quitepeculiar to this region of the globe, and which are so generalas to be characteristic of the greater part of it rather than ofany particular country or continent within its limits.The Equatorial Forest-Belt and its CausesWith but few and unimportant exceptions a great forestband from a thousand to fifteen hundred miles in width girdlesthe earth at the equator, clothing hill, plain, and mountainwith an evergreen mantle. Lofty peaks and precipitousridges are sometimes bare, but often the woody covering continuesto a height of eight or ten thousand feet, as in some ofthe volcanic mountains of Java and on portions of the EasternAndes. Beyond the forests both to the north and south, wemeet first with woody and then open country, soon changinginto arid plains or even deserts which form an almost con-