Dark green woods, of an exclusively tropical character, cover the valleys and declivities to a height of from 4,000 to 5,000 feet. Mighty palms rise above the mass of the forest, while innumerable shrubs cover the ground. The prevalent timber is gigantic, and scaled by climbing leguminosæ, bauhinias, and robinias, which sometimes sheathe the trunks, or span the forest with huge cables, joining tree to tree. Large bamboos rather crest the hills than court the deeper shade, of which there is abundance, for the torrents cut a straight and steep course down the hill-flanks. The gulleys which they traverse are choked by vegetation, and bridged by fallen trees, whose trunks are clothed with epiphytical orchids, pendulous lycopodia, ferns, pothos, peppers, vines, bignonias, and similar types of the hottest and dampest climates. The beauty of the drapery of the pothos leaves is pre-eminent, whether for the graceful folds of the foliage or for the liveliness of its colour. Of the more conspicuous smaller trees the wild banana is the most abundant, its broad crown contrasting with the smaller-leaved plants amongst which it nestles; next comes a screw-pine, with a straight stem and a tuft of leaves, each eight or ten feet long, waving on all sides. At an elevation of about four thousand feet many plants of the temperate zone, increasing in numbers as the traveller ascends, begin to mingle with the tropical vegetation, and to impart new charms to the forest; oaks and walnuts are here seen thriving near palms and arborescent ferns; mighty rhododendrons expand over thickets of tropical herbage; parasitical orchids adorn the trunks of the oaks, while thalictrons and geraniums blossom underneath. At a height of about 7,000 feet the forest, assuming a decidedly temperate physiognomy, is chiefly composed of oaks, magnolias, chestnuts, laurels, and walnuts. In many parts arborescent rhododendrons prevail, and ferns are generally very abundant.