Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 4).djvu/21

I] district, has been thus described by Mr S. Grantham in the Settlement Report, published in 1921:

Along the edges of streams in the tidal area there is often a fringe of mangrove vegetation in which the kyi (Barringtonia) is plentiful and the lamu tree (Sonneratia acida) is prominent by its long arms stretched out over the water and occasionally

obstructing the narrower passages and by its numerous round breathing spires standing out of the mud between tide-levels. Through occasional gaps in this screen the passenger along the river in July spies what appears to be a second river flowing behind a screen of jungle which grows up on a narrow wall of tidal mud; but later in the rains the second river is seen to be a continuous stretch of water covering the paddy fields with the tips of the plants standing out above its surface. In places in which brackish or salt water arrives, intervals in the mangrove