But To The Jungle Again, The Great Bamboo Towers Up Along The River
Sides In Its Feathery Grace, And Behind
It the much prized Malacca
cane, the rattan, creeping along the ground or climbing trees and
knotting them together, with
Its tough strands, from a hundred to
twelve hundred feet in length, matted and matting together while ferns,
selaginellas, and lycopodiums struggle for space in which to show their
fragile beauty, along with hardier foliaceous plants, brown and
crimson, green and crimson, and crimson flecked with gold; and the
great and lesser trees alike are loaded with trailers, ferns, and
orchids, among which huge masses of the elk-horn fern and the shining
five-foot fronds of the Asplenium Nidus are everywhere conspicuous.
Not only do orchids crowd the branches, and the hoya carnosa, the yam,
the blue-blossomed Thunbergia, the vanilla (?), and other beautiful
creepers, conceal the stems, while nearly every parasitic growth
carries another parasite, but one sees here a filament carelessly
dangling from a branch sustaining some bright-hued epiphyte of quaint
mocking form; then a branch as thick as a clipper's main-mast reaches
across the river, supporting a festooned trailer, from whose stalks
hang, almost invisibly suspended, oval fruits, almost vermilion
colored; then again the beautiful vanilla and the hoya carnosa vie with
each other in wreathing the same tree; or an audacious liana, with
great clusters of orange or scarlet blossoms, takes possession of
several trees at once, lighting up the dark greenery with its flaming
splotches; or an aspiring trailer, dexterously linking its feebleness
to the strength of other plants, leaps across the river from tree to
tree at a height of a hundred feet, and, as though in mockery, sends
down a profusion of crimson festoons far out of reach.
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