Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/66

 every variety of shape, entwining snake-like round the tree trunks or forming gigantic loops and coils among the larger branches; others, again, were of zigzag shape, or indented like the steps of a staircase, sweeping from the ground to a giddy height.

It interested me much afterwards to find that these climbing trees do not form any particular family or genus. There is no order of plants whose especial habit is to climb, but species of many and the most diverse families the bulk of whose members are not climbers, seem to have been driven by circumstances to adopt this habit. The orders Leguminosæ, Guttiferæ, Bignoniaceæ, Moraceæ and others, furnish the greater number. There is even a climbing genus of palms (Desmoncus), the species of which are called, in the Tupí language, Jacitára. These have slender, thickly-spined, and flexuous stems, which twine