THE RAIN TREE.
Some travellers in South America, in traversing an arid and' desolate tract of country, were struck (says Land and Water) with a strange contrast. On one side there was a barren desert, on the other a rich and luxuriant vegetation. The French consul at Loreto, Mexico, says that this remarkable contrast is due to the presence of the Tamai Caspi, or the rain-tree. This tree grows to the height of sixty feet, with a diameter of three feet at its base, and poisesses the power of strongly attracting, absorbing, and condensing the huinid'ty of the atmosphere. Water is always seen dripping from its trunk in such quantity as to convert the surrounding soil into a veritable marsh. It is in summer especially, when the rivers are nearly dried up, that the tree is most active. If this admirable quality of the rain-tree were utilised in the arid regions near the equator, the people there, living iv misery on account of the unproductive soil, would derive great advantages from its introduction, as well as the people of more favoured countries where the climate is dry and droughts frequent.
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Bibliographic details
Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3228, 3 November 1881, Page 4
Word Count
190THE RAIN TREE. Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3228, 3 November 1881, Page 4
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