the large barren wild pine of Tillandsia of the West Indies; a genus of the monogynia order, belonging to the hexandria class of plants. It is called Tinning, Caragatus by Father Plumier, and is a parasitic plant, and ought perhaps, in strict propriety, to be denominated an aquatic: for although it is suspended in the air among the branches of lofty trees, to whose boughs it is fastened by its numerous roots; yet it is not indebted to those boughs, like the mistletoe and other parasitic plants, for nourishment, but merely for support; provident Nature having, in a very extraordinary manner, supplied this with other means to preserve its existence: For the leaves, which much resemble those of the pineapple, but are larger, surround this plant in a circular manner; each leaf being terminated near the stalk with a hollow bucket, which contains about half a pint of water. It is by these numerous small reservoirs of water that the roots, as well as every other part of this plant, are supplied with nourishment, without the help of any earth. The flourishing condition of this plant, as well as the great growth of fig-trees, upon barren rocks, shows that water is of greater use to vegetation than earth.

One contrivance of Nature in this vegetable, says Dr Sloane, is truly admirable. The seed is crowned with many long downy threads, not only that it may be carried everywhere by the wind, but that by those threads, when driven through the boughs, it may be held fast, and stick to the arms and prominent parts of the barks of trees. So soon as it sprouts or germinates, although it be on the under part of a bough, its leaves and stalks rise perpendicular or erect: if they assumed any other direction, the cistern or reservoir just mentioned, made of the hollow leaves, could not hold water, which is necessary to the life and nourishment of the plant. In scarcity of water this reservoir is useful, not to the plant only, but to men, and even to birds and all sorts of insects, which come thither in troops, and seldom go away without refreshment.

To the same purpose, Dampier, in his Voyage to Campeachy, relates, "that the wild pine has leaves that will hold a pint and a half or quart of rain-water, which refreshes the leaves, and nourishes the roots. When we find these pines, we stick our knives into the leaves, just above the root; and the water gushing out, we catch it in our hats, as I myself have frequently done, to my great relief."