The fig-trees, which are among the most gigantic of the tropical forest-trees, and which support an immense profusion of epiphytes, are themselves frequently parasitic and epiphyte in their early condition. It is not uncommon in Jamaica to see a network of roots partially embracing the trunk of some great tree, far up its column, and gradually creeping round and downward. I have seen an old wall so covered, presenting a very curious spectacle. The roots of a wide-spreading fig growing out of the summit of the wall, had spread over its perpendicular surface, down to the earth, all in the same plane, clinging to the wall; the chief roots were as thick as a man's leg, but subordinate roots had proceeded from one to another, anastomosing in all directions (if I may use such a term), so as to make a most elaborate network of a multitude of meshes of various angular forms and sizes. These cross-roots were _at each extremity_ united with the larger roots, and looked as if the whole network had been skilfully carved out of one solid plank of wood, by cutting out the areas or meshes, and rounding the component bars; the very bark that covered the whole was continuous, where the roots united, as if they had been always integrally one. The only mode in which I can account for this singular phenomenon is the following hypothesis:--The seed of the tree was originally deposited on the summit of the wall, beneath the eaves. As it germinated, the roots ran down towards the earth, some perpendicularly, some diagonally; but all creeping along the surface of the wall, no roots having shot out from its perpendicular. As these roots increased, they sent out side rootlets, which, still running on the face of the wall, by and by came in contact with another of the primary roots. Then, instead of creeping _over_ it, as the roots of other trees would have done, the soft tip of the rootlet actually united with the substance of the root at the point of contact, the fibres of the two becoming interlaced, and their united surfaces gradually becoming covered with a common bark. The repetition of this process had produced the very curious wooden net which I have attempted to describe. A still more remarkable example of this parasitic mode of growth I have seen in the same island. By the side of a mountain road was a large fig-tree, the base of whose trunk was about thirty feet from the ground. Thence it reared itself up pillar-like towards the heavens, and spread abroad its vast horizontal array of branches across the road. From the same point there descended to the earth a hollow cone of roots, interwoven and anastomosed, especially at the upper parts, in the same manner as those of the boiling-house wall, but forming towards the bottom only three or four flattened irregular columns. Into the area inclosed by this network of roots a person might enter, for it was about six feet wide, and, looking up, behold the base of the trunk eight or ten yards above his head.