"The fig-tree--not that kind for fruit renowned, But such as at this day to Indians known, In Malabar or Dekkan spreads her arms, Branching so broad and long, that on the ground The bended twigs take root, and _daughters grow About the mother tree: a pillar'd_ shade High over arched and echoing walks between. There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat, Shelters in cool and _tends his pasturing flocks_ At loop-holes cut through thickest shade. These leaves They gathered; broad as _Amazonian targe:_ And with what skill they had, together sewed To gird their waist," &c. _Par. Lost_, ix. 1100. Pliny's description is borrowed, with some embellishments, from THEOPHRASTUS _de. Nat. Plant._ l. i. 7. iv. 4.] [Illustration: MARRIAGE OF THE FIG-TREE AND THE PALM.] Another species of the same genus, _F. repens,_ is a fitting representative of the English ivy, and is constantly to be seen clambering over rocks, turning through heaps of stones, or ascending some tall tree to the height of thirty or forty feet, while the thickness of its own stem does not exceed a quarter of an inch. The facility with which the seeds of the fig-tree take root where there is a sufficiency of moisture to permit of germination, has rendered them formidable assailants of the ancient monuments throughout Ceylon. The vast mounds of brickwork which constitute the remains of the Dagobas at Anarajapoora and Pollanarrua are covered densely with trees, among which the figs are always conspicuous. One, which has fixed itself on the walls of a ruined edifice at the latter city, forms one of the most remarkable objects of the place--its roots streaming downwards over the walls as if their wood had once been fluid, follow every sinuosity of the building and terraces till they reach the earth. [Illustration: A FIG TREE ON THE RUINS OF POLLANARRUA.] To this genus belongs the Sacred Bo-tree of the Buddhists, _Ficus religiosa,_ which is planted close to every temple, and attracts almost as much veneration as the statue of the god himself. At Anarajapoora is still preserved the identical tree said to have been planted 288 years before the Christian era.[1] [Footnote 1: For a memoir of this celebrated tree, see the account of Anarajapoora, Vol. II. p. 10.] Although the India-rubber tree (_F. elastica_) is not indigenous to Ceylon, it is now very widely diffused over the island. It is remarkable for the pink leathery covering which envelopes the leaves before expansion, and for the delicate tracing of the nerves which run in equi-distant rows at right angles from the mid-rib. But its most striking feature is the exposure of its roots, masses of which appear above ground, extending on all sides from the base, and writhing over the surface in undulations-- "Like snakes in wild festoon, In ramous wrestlings interlaced, A forest Laocoon."[1] [Footnote 1: HOOD's poem of _The Elm Tree._]