trunk is of an unusually bright green colour, and the branches issue horizontally from the stem, in whorls of threes with a distance of six or seven feet between each whorl.

Near every Buddhist temple the priests plant the Iron tree (Mesua ferrea)1 for the sake of its flowers, with which they decorate the images of Buddha. They resemble white roses, and form a singular contrast with the buds and shoots of the tree, which are of the deepest crimson. Along with its flowers the priests use likewise those of the Champac (Michelia Champaca), belonging to the family of magnoliacea. They have a pale yellow tint, with the sweet oppressive perfume which is celebrated in the poetry of the Hindoos. From the wood of the champac the images of Buddha are carved for the temples.

The celebrated Upas tree of Java (Antiaris toxicaria), which has been the subject of so many romances, exploded by Dr. Horsfield 2, was supposed by Dr. Gardner to exist in Ceylon, but more recent scrutiny has shown that what he mistook for it, was an allied species, the A. saccidora, which grows at Kornegalle, and in other parts of the island; and is scarcely less remarkable, though for very different characteristics. The Ceylon species was first brought to public notice by E. Rawdon Power, Esq. government agent of the Kandyan province, who sent specimens of it, and of the sacks which it furnishes, to the branch of the Asiatic Society at Colombo. It is known to the Singhalese by the name of "riti-gaha," and is identical with the Lepurandra saccidora, from which the

1 Dr. Gardner supposed the ironwood tree of Ceylon to have been confounded with the Messua ferrea of Linnæus. He asserted it to be a distinct species, and assigned to it the well-known Singhalese name "nagaha" or ironwood tree. But this conjecture has since proved erroneous. 2 The vegetable poisons, the use of which is ascribed to the Singhalese, are chiefly the seeds of the Datura,

which act as a powerful narcotic, and those of the Croton tiglium, the excessive effect of which ends in death. The root of the Nerium odorum is equally fatal, as is likewise the exquisitely beautiful Gloriosa superba, whose brilliant flowers festoon the jungle in the plains of the low country. See Bennett's account of the Antiaris, in HORSFIELD's Plantæ Jaranica.

natives of Coorg, like those of Ceylon, manufacture an ingenious substitute for saçks by a process which is described by Mr. Nimmo.1 "A branch is cut corresponding to the length and breadth of the bag required, it is soaked and then beaten with clubs till the liber separates from the timber. This done, the sack which is thus formed out of the bark is turned inside out, and drawn downwards to permit the wood to be sawn off, leaving a portion to form the bottom which is kept firmly in its place by the natural attachment of the bark."

As we descend the hills the banyans 2 and a variety of figs make their appearance. They are the thugs of the vegetable world, for although not necessarily epiphytic, it may be said that in point of fact no single plant comes to perfection, or acquires even partial development, without the destruction of some other on which to fix itself as its supporter. The family generally make their first appearance as slender roots hanging from the crown or trunk of some other tree, generally a palm, among the moist bases of whose leaves the seed carried thither by some bird which had fed upon the fig, begins to germinate. This root branching as it descends, envelopes the trunk of the supporting tree with a network of wood, and at length penetrating the ground, attains the dimensions of a stem. But unlike a stem it throws out no buds, leaves, or flowers; the true stem, with its branches, its foliage, and fruit, springs upwards from the crown of the tree whence the root is seen descending; and from it issue the pendulous rootlets, which, on reaching the earth, fix themselves firmly and form the marvellous growth for which the banyan is so celebrated. In the depth of this grove,

Catalogue of Bombay Plants, p. 193. The process in Ceylon is thus described in Sir W. HOOKER's Report on the Vegetable Products exhibited in Paris in 1855: "The trees chosen for the purpose measure above a foot in diameter. The felled trunks are cut into lengths, and the bark is well beaten with a stone or a club till the parenchymatous part comes

off, leaving only the inner bark attached to the wood; which is thus easily drawn out by the hand. The bark thus obtained is fibrous and tough, resembling a woven fabric: it is sewn at one end into a sack, which is filled with sand, and dried in the sun."

2 Ficus Indica.

3 I do not remember to have seen

the original tree is incarcerated till, literally strangled by the folds and weight of its resistless companion, it dies and leaves the fig in undisturbed possession of its place. It is not unusual in the forest to find a fig-tree

MARRIAGE OF THE FIG TREE AND THE PALM.

which had been thus upborne till it became a standard, now forming a hollow cylinder, the centre of which was once filled by the sustaining tree but the walls of which are but a circular network of interlaced roots and branches; firmly agglutinated under pressure, and admitting the light through interstices that look like loopholes in a turret.

Another species of the same genus, F. repens, is a fitting representative of the English ivy, and is constantly to be seen clambering over rocks, turning

the following passage from Pliny referred to as the original of Milton's description of this marvellous tree:

"Ipsa se serens, vastis diffunditur ramis: quorum imi adeo in terram curvantur, ut annuo spatio infigantur, novamque sibi propaginem faciant circa parentem in orbem. Intra septem eam estivant pastores, opacam pariter et munitam vallo arboris, decora specie subter intuenti, proculve fornicato arbore. Foliorum latitudo pelta effigiem Amazonica habet, &c." -PLINY, 1. xii. c. 11.

"The fig-tree-not that kind for fruit renowned,
But such as at this day to Indians known,
In Malabar or Dekkan spreads her arms,
Branching so broad and long, that on the ground
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother tree: a pillar'd shade
High over arched and echoing walks between.
There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,"
Shelters in cool and tends his pasturing flocks
At loop-holes cut through thickest shade. These
leaves

They gathered; broad as Amazonian targe:
And with what skill they had, together sewed
To gird their waist, &c."

Par. Lost, ix. 1100.

Pliny's description is borrowed, with some embellishments, from THEOPHRASTUS de Nat. Plant. 1. i. 7, iv. 4.

through heaps of stones, or ascending some tall tree to the height of thirty or forty feet, while the thickness of its own stem does not exceed a quarter of an inch.

The facility with which the seeds of the fig-tree take root where there is a sufficiency of moisture to permit of germination, has rendered them formidable assailants of the ancient monuments throughout Ceylon. The vast mounds of brickwork which constitute the remains of the Dagobas at Anarajapoora and Pollanarua are covered densely with trees, among which the figs are always conspicuous. One, which has fixed itself on the walls of a ruined edifice at the latter city, forms one of the most remarkable objects of the place-its roots streaming downwards over the walls as if they had once been fluid, follow every sinuosity of the building and terraces till they reach the earth.

A FIG TREE ON THE RUINS AT POLLANARUA.

To this genus belongs the Sacred Bo tree of the Buddhists, Ficus religiosa, which is planted close by every temple, and attracts almost as much veneration as the

statue of the God himself. At Anarajapoora is still preserved the identical tree said to have been planted 288 years before the Christian era.1

Although the India-rubber tree (F. elastica) is not indigenous to Ceylon, it is now very widely diffused over the island. It is remarkable for the pink leathery covering which envelopes the leaves before expansion, and for the delicate tracing of the nerves which run in equi-distant rows at right angles from the mid-rib. But its most striking feature is the exposure of its roots, masses of which appear above ground, extending

on all sides from the base, and writhing over the surface in undulations

"Like snakes in wild festoon,

In ramous wrestlings interlaced,
A forest Laocoon."2

So strong, in fact, is the resemblance, that the villagers give it the name of the "Snake-tree." One, which grows close to Cotta, at the Church Missionary establishment within a few miles of Colombo, affords a remarkable illustration of this peculiarity.

There is an avenue of these trees leading to the Gardens of Paradenia, the roots of which meet from either side of the road, and have so covered the surface by their agglutinated reticulations as to form a wooden

1 For a memoir of this celebrated tree, see the account of Anarajapoora, vol. ii. p. x.

2 HOOD's poem of The Elm Tree.