Then there are tree-ferns, which are ferns that have trunks like trees, which are sometimes thirty feet high, with fronds growing from their tops, so broad and tall that a number of people could sit underneath them in their cool, deep shade, as if they were a tent. And there are wonderful flowers in these forests, such as you only see here in botanical gardens or in the conservatories of rich people, orchids and pitcher-plants, and others with Latin names that one forgets. Some of them are flower-trees, or tree-flowers, as high as the trees are, and with hundreds of large, crimson blossoms glowing out like stars from their trunks. When you come upon them all at once in the gloom of the forest, it almost looks as if some of the trees were on fire. Other flowers are golden like the sun and grow all together in clusters, whilst others, again, grow on the branches of trees and hang down from them by long stalks which are like threads, each thread-stalk strung with flowers, as a thread is strung with beads. Only these flower-beads are as large as sunflowers, with colours varying from orange to red, and with beautiful, deep, purple-red spots upon them. But if you had wings like the Birds of Paradise, and could fly over the tops of the trees that make the forest, and look down into a leafy meadow instead of up into a leafy sky, then you would see the most gloriously beautiful flowers growing in that meadow, just as the daisies and buttercups grow in the meadows that you run over, here. For flowers love the light of the sun, and they struggle up into it through the leaves that keep it out. To them the leaves are not as the sky, but as the clouds that shut the sky out, and as they are clouds that will never roll away (even though they may fall sometimes in a rain of leaves), the only thing for them to do is to climb up to them and pierce them, and see the sky, with the sun shining in it, on the other side. So whilst a few flowers stay in the shade below, most of them grow and struggle up into the light and air above, and they are all in such a hurry to get there that every one tries to grow faster than all the others. Ah! what a race it is, a race to reach the sun. You have heard of all sorts of races, and some, perhaps, you have seen; running-races, races in sacks, boat-races, horse-races (though those, I hope, you never have and never will see), but you never either saw or heard of a fairer, lovelier, more delicate race than a race of flowers to reach the sun. Think of it, all over those great, wide, far-stretching forests, forests stretching away like the sea, and only bounded by the sea! Think of all the millions of flowers there must be in them, with all their delicate shapes, and rich, fragrant scents and glorious colours, and then think of them all growing up together, each trying to be the first to see the sun. So eager they all are, but so gentle. There is no pushing, nothing rude or rough. But as the leaves