arbore. Foliorum latitudo _peltae effigiem
Amazonicae_ habet," &c.--PLINY, 1. xii. c. 11.

"The fig-tree--not that kind for fruit renowned,
But such as at this day to Indians known,
In Malabar or Dekkan spreads her arms,
Branching so broad and long, that on the ground
The bended twigs take root, and _daughters grow
About the mother tree: a pillar'd_ shade
High over arched and echoing walks between.
There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,
Shelters in cool and _tends his pasturing flocks_
At loop-holes cut through thickest shade. These leaves
They gathered; broad as _Amazonian targe:_
And with what skill they had, together sewed
To gird their waist," &c.

_Par. Lost_, ix. 1100.

Pliny's description is borrowed, with some embellishments, from
THEOPHRASTUS _de. Nat. Plant._ l. i. 7. iv. 4.]

[Illustration: MARRIAGE OF THE FIG-TREE AND THE PALM.]

Another species of the same genus, _F. repens,_ is a fitting
representative of the English ivy, and is constantly to be seen
clambering over rocks, turning through heaps of stones, or ascending
some tall tree to the height of thirty or forty feet, while the
thickness of its own stem does not exceed a quarter of an inch.

The facility with which the seeds of the fig-tree take root where there
is a sufficiency of moisture to permit of germination, has rendered them
formidable assailants of the ancient monuments throughout Ceylon. The
vast mounds of brickwork which constitute the remains of the Dagobas at
Anarajapoora and Pollanarrua are covered densely with trees, among which
the figs are always conspicuous. One, which has fixed itself on the
walls of a ruined edifice at the latter city, forms one of the most
remarkable objects of the place--its roots streaming downwards over the
walls as if their wood had once been fluid, follow every sinuosity of
the building and terraces till they reach the earth.

[Illustration: A FIG TREE ON THE RUINS OF POLLANARRUA.]

To this genus belongs the Sacred Bo-tree of the Buddhists, _Ficus
religiosa,_ which is planted close to every temple, and attracts almost
as much veneration as the statue of the god himself. At Anarajapoora is
still preserved the identical tree said to have been planted 288 years
before the Christian era.[1]

[Footnote 1: For a memoir of this celebrated tree, see the account of
Anarajapoora, Vol. II. p. 10.]

Although the India-rubber tree (_F. elastica_) is not indigenous to
Ceylon