Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/279

Rh these stakes, which grow so mixed one among another, that I have, when forced to go through them, gone half a mile, and never set my foot on the ground, stepping from root to root."

There is a species of cane that must surely be considered a wonderful plant, for, though no thicker than the little finger, it is sometimes a quarter of a mile in length. This vegetable cord is studded with sharp prickles, by means of which it is enabled to cling to the leaves and branches of the various trees which it encounters in its serpentine course.

The gum-trees of the Australian forests resemble our own timber trees in form, but their leaves, instead of being extended horizontally so as to catch the falling rain, are placed edgewise, and thus allow the rain-drops and the sun’s rays to pass between them. Near these wonderful trees, which afford no shelter, may be found the grass-tree, displaying what seems to be an immense tuft of wiry grass elevated on the summit of a dark ungainly trunk. A number of tall spikes of blossom, resembling bulrushes, spring from the centre of the grassy crown, and render this wonderful plant still more anomalous.

The famous banyan-tree must not be omitted, for it would be difficult to find a plant to which the epithet "wonderful" could be applied with greater propriety. This sacred tree of the Hindoos attains a prodigious size, sometimes covering an area of nearly 2000 square yards, for its lateral branches