The leaves, the flowers, the fruit, can only be examined by felling the tree; and not even always then, for sometimes the tree when cut refuses to fall, linked as it is by chains of liane to all the trees around.

Even that wonderful water-vine which we cut through just now may be one of three or even four different plants.

{132} Soon you will be struck by the variety of the vegetation, and will recollect what you have often heard, that social plants are rare in the tropic forests.

Certainly they are rare in Trinidad; where the only instances of social trees are the Moras (which I have never seen growing wild) and the Moriche palms.

In Europe, a forest is usually made up of one dominant plant--of firs or of pines, of oaks or of beeches, of birch or of heather.