Note 50 — Chapter XVII

The annexed woodcut is too minute to represent the details, but it may give some idea of the plantain-groves in the obscurity of these forests. The cumbrous stems are thickly overgrown with wild pepper, and the spreading branches are loaded with long bead moss (Usnea), and with that remarkable lichen to which I have given the name of elephant’s ear: high among the boughs are the huge dwellings of the tree-termes. Some stems, already decayed, serve as supports for immense garlands of Mucuna, and, overhung by impenetrable foliage, form roomy bowers where dull obscurity reigns supreme. Such is the home of the chimpanzee.