Our Island Empire Author:Charles Morris Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ffl. NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. FOREST TREES. The vast forests of Cuba, so dense as to be almost impenetrable, many of their deep recesses having never been trav... more »ersed, contain numerous species of valuable trees, frequently luxuriant in growth and magnificent in dimensions. Hard-wood trees, of high value for cabinet work and other purposes, are very abundant, including the mahogany, ebony, cedar, logwood, iron-wood, lignum-vitae and various other species. It is said that there are in all more than forty varieties of fine cabinet woods. The palm, with more than thirty species, is everywhere present. The ubiquitous and useful cocoa-nut palm extends its realm from mountain to coast-lands, and the stately royal palm (Palma rcal) is found in all localities, especially in the west. This queen of the south is associated in the Isle of Pines with a tree characteristic of the north, the pine, so common there as to give its name to the island, in which it shares the surface with the mahogany and the palm. Something peculiar in the soil causes this tree to flourish here, so far from its native regions. It also occurs in Pinar del Rio, whose name likewise is derived from it. All the majestic trees of the Mexican lowlands, so famous for the beauty of their foliage and the splendor of their flowers, give grace and charm to the Cuban coasts; while in the forests, in addition to the usefultrees named, are various dye-woods, an abundance of ferns, and vines in great variety, some of these of such strength as to strangle the trees which they clasp in their insinuating embrace. It is the intricacy of these clinging vines, or lianas, that renders the forests impossible to traverse without the constant aid of the machete. " Only those who have seen a tropical forest can form an idea of thes...« less