In Europe, a woodland scene has its spring, its summer, its autumnal, and its winter aspects. In the equatorial forests the aspect is the same or nearly so every day in the year: budding, flowering, fruiting, and leaf-shedding are always going on in one species or other. It is never either spring, summer, or autumn, but each day is a combination of all three. With the day and night always of equal length, the atmospheric disturbances of each day neutralising themselves before each succeeding morn; with the sun in its course proceeding midway across the sky, and the daily temperature almost the same throughout the year--how grand in its perfect equilibrium and simplicity is the march of Nature under the equator!” II. EQUATORIAL VEGETATION. The Equatorial Forest-Belt and its Causes--General features of the Equatorial Forests--Low-growth Forest-trees--Flowery trunks and their probable cause--Uses of Equatorial Forest-trees--The Climbing Plants of the Equatorial Forests--Palms--Uses of Palm-trees and their Products--Ferns--Ginger-worts and wild Bananas--Arums--Screw-pines--Orchids--Bamboos--Uses of the Bamboo--Mangroves--Sensitive-plants--Comparative scarcity of Flowers--Concluding Remarks on Tropical Vegetation. In the following sketch of the characteristics of vegetable life in the equatorial zone, it is not intended to enter into any scientific details or to treat the subject in the slightest degree from a botanical point of view; but merely to describe those general features of vegetation which are almost or quite peculiar to this region of the globe, and which are so general as to be characteristic of the greater part of it rather than of any particular country or continent within its limits.