'The chief feature of this forest was the abundance of rattan palms,
hanging from the trees, and turning and twisting about on the ground,
often in inextricable confusion. One wonders at first how they can get into
such queer shapes; but it is evidently caused by the decay and fall of the
trees up which they have first climbed, after which they grow along the
ground till they meet with another trunk up which to ascend. A tangled
mass of twisting living rattan is therefore a sign that at some former period
a large tree has fallen there, though there may be not the slightest vestige
of it left.'
'The rattan seems to have unlimited power of growth, and a single
plant may mount up several trees in succession, and thus reach the
enormous length they are said sometimes to attain. They much improve
the appearance of the forest as seen from the coast; for they vary the
otherwise monotonous tree-tops with feathery crowns of leaves rising clear
above them, and each terminated by an erect leafy spike like a lightning
conductor.'
Alfred Russell Wallace, (1853)
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