The Republic of Liberia . ions is notconfined to the scientific by training, habit, and con-viction ; others there are, unhappily, who, possessinglittle in the way of well-grounded scientific attainment,seem nevertheless unable to resist the temptation to filltheir pages with this sort of stuff ; printing appendices,apparently intended for the general reader, consistingof many pages of unintelligible botanical jargon whoseuse should be made penal outside the limits of theRoyal Botanical Societys Gardens. The amazing cyra- FLORA 155 cism of these self-confessed sciolists says in effect : Ifyou
The Republic of Liberia . ions is notconfined to the scientific by training, habit, and con-viction ; others there are, unhappily, who, possessinglittle in the way of well-grounded scientific attainment,seem nevertheless unable to resist the temptation to filltheir pages with this sort of stuff ; printing appendices,apparently intended for the general reader, consistingof many pages of unintelligible botanical jargon whoseuse should be made penal outside the limits of theRoyal Botanical Societys Gardens. The amazing cyra- FLORA 155 cism of these self-confessed sciolists says in effect : Ifyou have no knowledge of the scientific aspects of thesesubjects, leave them alone. Our task is not to instructthe ignorant. And so they go on their way, believingthemselves surrounded by a halo of awe-inspired admir-ation, which is really something quite different. In theinterests of clearness, therefore, and in the hope ofrendering myself more intelligible to the ordinaryunscientific reader, I have done what one may, in the. A familiar Parasitic Creeper. course of this chapter, to dispense with terms not usuallyand conversationally employed. But little studied assuredly, when we come to con-sider the vastness of the subject, the amazing, rampantvegetation of Liberia can only be compared to a bookof immense size but few of whose opening pages haveas yet been perfunctorially scanned. Its adequateexamination would tax even the great resources of Xew,backed by the assistance of scores upon scores oftrained botanists working continuously for many appearance of the forest as ones eyes alight upon 156 THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA it for the first time is beautiful, unusual, and impressivein the extreme. You see before you a dense, unbrokenscreen of leaves, leaves, leaves, of every shape andform and size and shade of green, but wall-like, im-penetrable, almost forbidding in its apparent—indeed,its very real—solidity. The trees, but few of whichpossess names recognizable by the a
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