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 Edited by Barbara Pavey, Neil Alexander-Passe, and Margaret Meehan
ENTREPRENEURSHIP, DYSLEXIA, AND EDUCATION
Routledge Studies in Entrepreneurship

ENTREPRENEURSHIP,
DYSLEXIA, AND EDUCATION
RESEARCH, PRINCIPLES, AND PRACTICE
Edited by
Barbara Pavey, Neil Alexander-Passe, and
Margaret Meehan

www.routledge.com

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Entrepreneurship, Dyslexia,
and Education

The development of entrepreneurial abilities in people with dyslexia

is a subject of great interest. It has gained increasing importance in
economically diffcult times because of its potential for the development of
new business opportunities. This book brings together contributions from
researchers, educators, and entrepreneurs with dyslexia, investigating this
subject from many perspectives.
Is there something different in the profle of a person with dyslexia that
supports the development of entrepreneurship? This book aims to draw
out key themes which can be used in education to motivate, mentor, and
create the business leaders of tomorrow. It offers a fundamental text for
this area of study with a comprehensive, international examination of
its topic. It includes views by new and established international writers
and researchers, providing up-to-date perspectives on entrepreneurship,
dyslexia, and education. It is accessible to read, to understand, and to
learn from and is suitable for recommended reading for graduate and
postgraduate students.
The diverse views and perspectives demonstrated in this book make it as
relevant as possible for a wide group of readers. It informs study in the felds
of business and dyslexia, and will be of interest to educators, researchers,
and to anyone interested in the overlap of entrepreneurship and dyslexia.

Barbara Pavey is an independent dyslexia and special educational needs and

disability specialist and author, focusing on Dyslexia-Friendly principles and
techniques, and with a particular interest in entrepreneurship.

Neil Alexander-Passe is a special educational needs and disability

coordinator in primary and secondary schools and an expert inclusion
adviser to the UK’s Department of Education, and his focus is the
emotional impact of dyslexia.

Margaret Meehan is a specialist tutor in higher education, previously

directing tutor support, and a former chartered chemist and chartered
science teacher. As an author she is concerned with researching the
holistic impact of dyslexia and other learning attributes.
Routledge Studies in Entrepreneurship

This series extends the meaning and scope of entrepreneurship by

capturing new research and enquiry on economic, social, cultural
and personal value creation. Entrepreneurship as value creation
represents the endeavours of innovative people and organisations in
creative environments that open up opportunities for developing new
products, new services, new frms and new forms of policy making in
different environments seeking sustainable economic growth and social
development. In setting this objective the series includes books which
cover a diverse range of conceptual, empirical and scholarly topics that
both inform the feld and push the boundaries of entrepreneurship.

A History of Enterprise Policy

Government, Small Business and Entrepreneurship
Oliver Mallett and Robert Wapshott

New Frontiers in the Internationalization of Businesses

Empirical Evidence from Indigenous Businesses in Canada
Fernando Angulo-Ruiz

Contextualizing Entrepreneurship Theory

Ted Baker and Friederike Welter

Entrepreneurial Marketing and International New Ventures

Antecedents, Elements and Outcomes
Edited by Izabela Kowalik

Entrepreneurship, Dyslexia, and Education

Research, Principles, and Practice
Edited by Barbara Pavey, Neil Alexander-Passe, and Margaret Meehan

For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/Routledge-

Studies-in-Entrepreneurship/book-series/RSE
Entrepreneurship, Dyslexia,
and Education
Research, Principles, and Practice

Edited by Barbara Pavey,

Neil Alexander-Passe, and
Margaret Meehan
First published 2021
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2021 Taylor & Francis
The right of Barbara Pavey, Neil Alexander-Passe, and Margaret
Meehan to be identifed as the authors of the editorial material, and
of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pavey, Barbara, editor. | Alexander-Passe, Neil, editor. |
Meehan, Margaret, editor.
Title: Entrepreneurship, dyslexia and education: research, principles
and practice/edited by Barbara Pavey, Neil Alexander-Passe and
Margaret Meehan.
Description: New York, NY: Routledge, 2021. | Series: Routledge
studies in entrepreneurship | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifers: LCCN 2020032789 (print) | LCCN 2020032790
(ebook) | ISBN 9780815396468 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781351036900 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Entrepreneurship. | Dyslexics—Intellectual life.
Classifcation: LCC HB615.E577883 2021 (print) | LCC HB615
(ebook) | DDC 338/.04071—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020032789
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020032790
ISBN: 978-0-8153-9646-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-03690-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
This book is dedicated to the memory of
Professor Robert (Bob) Burden (1940–2014)
Whose scholarship and research in education created
an important appreciation of the emotional impact of dyslexia
Contents

Acknowledgements x
Foreword xi
STEPHEN KEY
Chapter Summaries xvi

Introduction: Entrepreneurs With Dyslexia: Challenge and

Achievement in the Business World 1
BARBARA PAVEY

PART I
Entrepreneurship 21

1 An Award-Winning Entrepreneur: Sharon Hewitt 23

NEIL ALEXANDER-PASSE

2 Documenting the Role of UK Agricultural Colleges

in Propagating the Farming-Dyslexia-Entrepreneurship
Nexus 37
ROBERT SMITH, GILLIAN CONLEY AND LOUISE MANNING

3 Dyslexia, Entrepreneurship, and Education in Singapore 57

DEBORAH HEWES AND GEETHA SHANTHA RAM

4 Entrepreneurship, Dyslexia, and the Modern World: A

Positive Psychology Approach 74
POLIANA SEPULVEDA AND RODERICK NICOLSON

5 Dyslexia, Entrepreneurship, and Transition to Decent Work 92

MAXIMUS MONAHENG SEFOTHO
viii Contents
6 Towards a Dyslexia Superpower: Refections
on the Year in the Life of a Dyslexic
Professor of Entrepreneurship 109
NIGEL LOCKETT

PART II
Dyslexia 127

7 Dyslexia and Entrepreneurship: A Theoretical Perspective 129

ANGELA FAWCETT

8 Dyslexia, Trauma, and Traits for Success 144

NEIL ALEXANDER-PASSE

9 Multi-Sided Dyslexia: The Age of the Entrepreneurs With

New Reading Abilities 161
EVA GYARMATHY

PART III
Education 181

10 Entrepreneurship Education and Dyslexia: Pedagogies and

a Pilot Study 183
BARBARA PAVEY

11 Developing Entrepreneurs With Dyslexia Through Higher

Education (HE) in Wales 202
MATTHEW ARMSTRONG AND MARGARET MEEHAN

12 Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG): A New Way of

Understanding the Experience of Successful People
With Dyslexia 219
NEIL ALEXANDER-PASSE

13 Dyslexia and Entrepreneurship Education: What do

Students who Study in Higher Education (HE) Say? 239
MARGARET MEEHAN, PAUL ADKINS, BARBARA PAVEY AND
ANGELA FAWCETT
 Contents ix
Conclusion: The Experience of Entrepreneurs
With Dyslexia 255
BARBARA PAVEY, NEIL ALEXANDER-PASSE
AND MARGARET MEEHAN

List of Contributors 272

Appendix 279
Appendix One: Comparison of Principles of Universal
Design for Instruction and Dyslexia-Friendly
Principles (Pavey, 2015) 281
Index 284
Acknowledgements

As editors, we would like to thank all of the contributing authors

who gave their time and expertise to provide input for this book.
Their chapters have enabled us to present a wide panorama in exploring
different aspects of the topic of entrepreneurship and dyslexia, and we are
enormously grateful for their support of the project.
We would also like to thank the many individuals who provided
context and detail for us in approaching our subject. These include the
students and entrepreneurs who donated their time so that we could
interview them, and also the independent business people and sole traders
with whom we had informal conversations about entrepreneurship and
dyslexia.
Where research was carried out within the purview of Swansea
University, we would like to thank Adele Jones, Disability Offce Manager,
and Sandy George, Director of the Centre for Academic Success, for
their support of the research project, and also Sara Griffths and Caroline
Kneath for their help in transcribing the interviews. In addition, we would
like to thank Paul Adkins, who at that time was a member of the staff
of Harper-Adams University, for reviewing two of the chapters about
entrepreneurship.
Regarding resources, we would like to acknowledge that the table
comparing principles of Universal Design for Instruction and Dyslexia-
Friendly principles, shown as Appendix One, appeared frst in Asia Pacifc
Journal of Developmental Disabilities in 2015. It appears here by kind
permission of the journal’s editors.
Finally, we would like to thank the editorial team who guided us
at Routledge, particularly Brianna Ascher, Mary del Plato and Naomi
Round Cahalin for their patience and support. We would also like to
acknowledge, with gratitude, the unfailing patience of our copy editor,
Gilbert Rajkumar Gnanarathinam and his team.
Foreword

Stephen Key, has dyslexia and is the author of One Simple Idea and a
cofounder of inventRight. He has lectured at the University of Newcastle
on ‘How to launch a product without starting a business.’

I was delighted to be asked to write the foreword for this interesting

book. It is an impressive achievement, combining as it does the felds of
entrepreneurship, dyslexia and education in a way that illuminates a topic
which has caused great interest.
The chapters provide an eclectic mix, approaching the topic from
different perspectives and through their cumulative impact, contributing
to a better understanding of why entrepreneurs who experience dyslexia
might be in a particular position that encourages success.
The theme of the book interests me because I am an entrepreneur who
experiences dyslexia, and who also lectures in the Higher Education (HE)
sector. That puts me in a particular position to appreciate this volume.
Like others described in these pages, I too had a diffcult time in education
when I was young.
Life is full of surprises. Growing up, school was truly a nightmare
for me. Never in a million years did I imagine that I would become an
educator, let alone grow to love teaching others.
My favourite part of grade school was recess, because that’s where
I felt safe. I remember staring out of classroom windows constantly,
praying and hoping I wouldn’t be called upon. That was my biggest fear—
that I’d be asked to read aloud or have to spell. I knew something wasn’t
quite right, because for my classmates these tasks were effortless. For me,
xii Foreword
they were nearly impossible. I just couldn’t pronounce or spell words the
right way. I began to fail second grade, hiding my assignments from my
parents under the carpet in the tree fort in my backyard until the lump
grew too large for them to ignore.
Very concerned, my parents hired a tutor to help me, but to get
by I also developed a very good work ethic. To not to be found out,
I realized I would have to work harder than everyone else. At an early
age, I learned a lot about hiding.
Today, I’m about as far from hidden as you can get. I’ve authored four
books about entrepreneurship, one of which is a bestseller. Videos on my
educational YouTube channel inventRightTV have been viewed nearly
three million times. Over the past decade, I’ve published 1,000 articles
about commercialising product ideas online, primarily for business
magazines including Forbes, Inc., and Entrepreneur. My inventing
coaching company, inventRight, has 20 employees. In 2018–2019, I was
nationally recognized as an American Association for the Advancement of
Science-Lemelson Invention Ambassador.
As it turns out, you don’t need to be able to spell to write. But you
absolutely do need to be able to overcome obstacles to become a
successful entrepreneur. Before my dyslexia was diagnosed, I always felt
confused, insecure and less than. I was ashamed. I did not want to be
discovered. Now I look at my dyslexia as a blessing.
I can see things others cannot see. I notice the smallest details. I’m always
looking ahead so that I can identify and overcome any obstacles in my way.
These skills are a huge part of my professional success.
I wasn’t diagnosed with severe dyslexia until my 40s, which meant
I hid my learning disability for decades. I had a lot of time to cultivate
these skills, in other words. Because I was terrifed of being exposed, I was
always pre-planning. In every situation, I carefully considered the smallest
of details, with an eye for an exit. It wasn’t until I turned 50 that I really,
truly began to embrace how I’m different.
Because of this particular problem, I learned to never give up.
Like I said, my learning disability taught me very early on that I would
have to work twice as hard as everyone else. Today, my work ethic is my
greatest strength. Most people give up way too early and are afraid to
make mistakes. Not me. I’ve been failing my entire life! For me, failure is a
friend. I’m willing to put myself in situations where I don’t know what I’m
doing because I have enough confdence in myself that I’ll fgure it out.
 Foreword xiii
Fundamentally, having dyslexia taught me how to look at situations
differently so I could overcome obstacles. There’s always another way
of doing something. You just have to identify that alternative path.
My skillset as an entrepreneur is a direct refection of the roadblocks
I’ve had to get around. These days, I don’t even think of problems as
roadblocks—really, they’re just opportunities to shine. I’m able to accept
what I don’t know and move forward quickly.
I apply my powers of observation all the time by studying the
landscape of any business opportunity extremely closely. I look at all the
angles, including strengths and weaknesses. I’m very curious. I know that
by asking the right questions, I can fnd the answers.
Ultimately, dyslexia and entrepreneurship are inextricably linked
for me. Because I had such diffculty spelling, I assumed no one would
ever hire me and that I would need to create my own job—so I did.
I began working with my hands, discovered that I loved it and made
developing new products and bringing them to market my career for
decades. Now I teach others how to do the same, including sharing
my ten-step process for licencing ideas with university students around
the world.
My dyslexia used to be such an embarrassment to me. But in truth,
it’s been the biggest gift I could have ever received. For someone who is
creative, being able to examine fne details and brainstorm alternatives
could not be more helpful. Everywhere I look, I end up fnding different
opportunities.
I think we need to do a better job of celebrating people who
are different. We need to give students who have some type of
learning disability other opportunities to shine, not merely label and
relegate them to certain classes. When they’re older, their problem-
solving skills are going to come in extremely handy. They need role
models and important problems to solve so we can all celebrate
their successes.
This book offers the reader a huge opportunity to better understand
both dyslexia and entrepreneurship, and how education has a vital part to
play in the development of entrepreneurs of the future.
The book begins by looking at Sharon Hewitt, an entrepreneur
like myself. She struggled at school but found her unique ability
was that she could offer the business world new insights, as Richard
Branson and others have done, by bringing new products to market.
xiv Foreword
Lockett (in Chapter 6) also understands that dyslexia brings abilities and
not disabilities, and that there is scope for innovation in society if one
is open to embracing difference. I very much agree with the idea that
dyslexia may be a ‘superpower!’
Looking at Singapore, Hewes and Shantha Ram’s chapter help us
understand how a forward-looking society can embrace dyslexia at all
levels of society; raising awareness certainly is a noble cause. Interestingly,
the chapter by Sefotho documents the reality that entrepreneurship may
offer the only choice for many with dyslexia, due to their diffculties
working in mainstream work environments. I personally relate to this.
Sepulveda and Nicolson’s chapter suggests the use of positive
psychology in understanding successful individuals with dyslexia.
The investigation by Smith, Conley and Manning into the high levels
of individuals with dyslexia in UK farming demonstrates why many
with dyslexia may be drawn to farming professions—a practical and
vocational career. The numbers turning to such career choices makes this
an interesting topic to read about.
The chapter by Fawcett offers a novel understanding as to why
entrepreneurs like myself can be creative in their approach and offer ‘blue
sky’ divergent thinking or solutions to problems that most linear thinkers
would not see. The trauma and traits for success as noted in Alexander-
Passe’s chapter suggest my own struggles are commonplace among those
with dyslexia, in that they allow for the ability to take risks in life, as
failure is a means to an end and not just an end.
Gyarmathy’s chapter looking at multi-sided dyslexia offers readers
a breather to conceptualise if dyslexia is part of the next evolution of
mankind, where a perceived weakness in one sphere can be an advantage
in another. Maybe we really are moving towards valuing creative problem-
solving at all levels of society? I hope.
Looking to the chapters on education, I can see my own path of
supporting learners to be entrepreneurial in their thinking, especially those
who may struggle in traditional university learning settings. My own
course at the University of Newcastle is one such means to enhance the
understanding of entrepreneurship. Pavey’s chapter, which features a study
that asked entrepreneurs with dyslexia what they would have liked when
studying at university, refects a desire for a greater awareness of needs
and greater accommodations.
 Foreword xv
The innovative approach to education in Wales, in that all courses
must include a module in entrepreneurial career choices, opens up
the ability for those with learning diffculties and different genders to
be empowered. The term ‘Dyspreneur’ offers a new way to describe
entrepreneurs with the ability to think differently. This is refected in the
later chapter that questions how business courses are offered at university
for those with dyslexia or other learning differences, and if computer
software simulations are a means to offer the visual-kinaesthetic
experience that many with learning diffculties strive for so that they can
experience success in their studies.
Alexander-Passe’s chapter on post-traumatic growth resonates with my
own thinking that only through the trauma of school have I been able to
be successful in life; that my gut intuition and openness to failure and risk
have come from working through failure to get to success. A very hard
journey, but a road less travelled, as Robert Frost’s poem notes, is more
productive, richer and makes all the difference. The question is must those
with dyslexia suffer in school to be successful? I hope this book helps
change the mindsets of educators, aiding them in recognising dyslexia
earlier and valuing the unique skills and abilities of such individuals.
Stephen Key
Chapter Summaries

Introduction

Entrepreneurs With Dyslexia: Challenge and Achievement in

the Business World by Barbara Pavey

Research has indicated that a higher than expected proportion of

entrepreneurs experience dyslexia, when compared with corporate
managers. This chapter provides an overview of concepts underpinning
entrepreneurship, dyslexia and entrepreneurship education, in relation
to entrepreneurs who experience dyslexia. Current understandings of
entrepreneurship and dyslexia are described, and the relevance of the
concept of ‘bricolage’ is discussed. The chapter considers the intersection
of entrepreneurship and dyslexia as described by the book’s authors,
and points the way to deeper considerations of the ‘space’ where
entrepreneurship, dyslexia and education meet.

Entrepreneurship

Chapter 1: An Award-Winning Entrepreneur: Sharon Hewitt

by Neil Alexander-Passe

This chapter investigates a successful female entrepreneur who experiences

dyslexia. Tracking her life’s journey from school to employment helps to
understand the personal experience of dyslexia and how an individual can
overcome a learning diffculty to become an award-winning entrepreneur.
This chapter investigates how UK mainstream schools in the 1970’s and
1980’s struggled to understand students who were intelligent verbally but
 Chapter Summaries xvii
who, when it came to transferring such ideas to paper, were seen as lazy
and stupid, with a knock-on effect to the young individual’s self-esteem.
This narrative tells of how post-school an individual with traits associated
with dyslexia can use their strengths and abilities to overcome perceived
literacy barriers, and that through creating a support structure an
individual with dyslexia can reach career heights that their school careers
advisors could only dream of.

Chapter 2: Documenting the Role of UK Agricultural Colleges

in Propagating the Farming-Dyslexia-Entrepreneurship Nexus
by Robert Smith, Gillian Conley and Louise Manning

It is now acknowledged that the incidence of dyslexia in farming and land-

based industries is signifcantly higher than in the average population,
albeit there are no defnitive statistics available. This chapter expands
upon and updates previous work by the authors on the topic and extends
our knowledge base into the equine industry. There is a paucity of serious
academic studies into the phenomenon, and much of what we know is
based upon self-reporting by farmers and students and the anecdotal
experience of staff at Agricultural Colleges and Universities in dealing with
students with dyslexia. Additionally, this chapter provides conceptual and
theoretical purchase by synthesising the established literature on farmers
as entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurship-dyslexia nexus. Using anecdotal
evidence, case studies and data from preliminary qualitative interviews
with respondents, a clearer picture of the incidence and scope of the
phenomenon emerges. The discussion raises awareness of dyslexia in rural
industries at a time when there is increasing demand for support services
to enable those in industry to complete everyday tasks which can involve
literacy and numeracy skills.

Chapter 3: Dyslexia, Entrepreneurship and Education in

Singapore by Deborah Hewes and Geetha Shantha Ram

In the past decade, there has been a clear shift in what dyslexia means
in Singapore’s educational, political and socio-cultural conversations.
Offcially, the nation is clear that dyslexia is not seen as a stigma, and
government level efforts have increased the awareness of dyslexia among
its people. Yet, while on the surface it is apparent that dyslexia should not
be stigmatised, beneath the surface there is a fragmented understanding of
dyslexia; many do not know how to understand, and deal with, dyslexia
xviii Chapter Summaries
holistically. The ‘Embrace Dyslexia’ campaign launched by the Dyslexia
Association of Singapore (DAS) aims to promote the positive aspects of
dyslexia. Entrepreneurs with dyslexia contributed their personal stories,
showing that success was achievable in spite of dyslexia; some of these
stories are shared in this chapter. While much is known about supporting
children, Singapore continues to develop awareness about adults with
learning differences such as dyslexia. It is evident from entrepreneurs’
stories that adults with learning differences can and do make a signifcant
contribution to the Singaporean community and economy.

Chapter 4: Entrepreneurship, Dyslexia, and the Modern

World: A Positive Psychology Approach by Poliana Sepulveda
and Roderick Nicolson

It can be argued that the key focus of the entrepreneurial world in the
twenty-frst century will be attention to specifc traits, specifcally those
which could help a person to become an entrepreneur. Interestingly
there appears to be a link between entrepreneurship and dyslexia,
but this has not been widely explored using empirical techniques.
In earlier research by Sepulveda, a qualitative study was carried out to
identify the themes that clustered around entrepreneurial traits, traits
associated with dyslexia and those which were more generic traits for
entrepreneurs. 11 themes were identifed, which were communication
skills, resilience, delegation/team-work/shared tasks, vision, proactivity,
risks with precaution, empathy, freedom, entrepreneur family, asking
for help/modesty and control. These traits can be compared with those
found in the work of Logan (2009). Further exploration of the traits of
entrepreneurs who experience dyslexia, as described in this chapter, lead
to a wider understanding of those characteristics and an appreciation of
how the experience of dyslexia can lead to traits, strategies, skills and
entrepreneurial action.

Chapter 5: Dyslexia, Entrepreneurship and Transition to

Decent Work by Maximus Monaheng Sefotho

This chapter explores entrepreneurship, dyslexia and the transition to

decent work. Generally persons with disabilities, in particular those with
dyslexia, fnd it diffcult to enter the world of work. Youth with dyslexia
face the dilemma to transit to decent work due to lack of understanding
of how people who experience dyslexia perceive and interpret the world.
 Chapter Summaries xix
In order to understand dyslexia from indigenous knowledge perspectives,
this chapter benchmarks the interpretation of dyslexia from the Basotho
ontology of disability. The chapter anchors dyslexia, entrepreneurship
and transition to decent work on Basotho paremiography as a premise
for meaning. This creates space for voices from the South, which are less
represented in discourses on dyslexia on the global stage. The Basotho
ontology of disability mirrors positive perspectives which allow for
the empowerment of youth with dyslexia to enter and participate in
entrepreneurship and decent work.

Chapter 6: Towards a Dyslexia Superpower: Refections on the

Year in the Life of a Dyslexic Professor of Entrepreneurship by
Nigel Lockett

This chapter consists of extracts from 52 weekly blogs entitled

The Dyslexic Professor, posted by Nigel Lockett, Professor of
Entrepreneurship, between December 2016 and December 2017 at www.
nigellockett.com. These blogs explored the personal challenges and
organisational advantages of dyslexia. They advocated the seismic shift
from portraying dyslexia as a disability through learning difference to
advantage or superpower. To retain the sense of unfolding self-awareness,
the sequence of the blogs is retained. In essence, this is a story of
disclosure, which resulted in the author’s liberation and determination—
liberation from the disability label and determination to do something
to extol the positive advantages of dyslexia, and ultimately neurological
diversity, for organisations.

Dyslexia

Chapter 7: Dyslexia and Entrepreneurship: A Theoretical

Perspective by Angela Fawcett

This chapter outlines recent developments in Nicolson and Fawcett’s

theories of dyslexia, focusing on delayed neural commitment.
This theoretical perspective provides a natural explanation based on
delays in acquiring automaticity in dyslexia. This can provide a rationale
for the creativity and ‘blue skies’ thinking that characterise entrepreneurs.
The chapter is illustrated with case studies of adults and children that
the author has worked with over the years, who have themselves
demonstrated aspects of this entrepreneurial fair. The chapter indicates
xx Chapter Summaries
some of the major opportunities identifed by the positive dyslexia
movement in ensuring success for those with dyslexia in any feld.

Chapter 8: Dyslexia, Trauma and Traits for Success by Neil

Alexander-Passe

This paper investigates school-based trauma and the life-long post-school

effects of such trauma, creating successful/unsuccessful individuals in
society. Three studies were investigated:

1. A study of 20 successful individuals with dyslexia, many in business

and the charity sectors
2. A study of 29 adults with dyslexia, many indicating depressive
symptoms
3. A study of 88 adults using a screening measure to indicate severity,
looking at gender and degree-education, with profles created to aid
understanding

School-trauma was found in all. Successful individuals enjoyed higher

parental-child support, sports and non-academic subject success. As adults,
they were more willing to take risks, saw failure in a positive light and
frequently were self-employed, allowing a focus on strengths rather than
weaknesses. Unsuccessful adults were prone to doubt their own abilities,
self-blaming, pessimistic and getting upset when things go wrong.
School is a crucial environment that provides a melting pot in the life
of a young learner with dyslexia. It is an environment in which they learn
how society works and whether they can succeed or fail, setting them on
a path for life. Both successful and unsuccessful people who experience
dyslexia agree that their educational experiences were mostly terrible and
in most cases traumatic, but each group has taken different lessons from
their time at school.

Chapter 9: Multi-Sided Dyslexia: The Age of the Entrepreneurs

With New Reading Abilities by Eva Gyarmathy

Due to the plasticity of the human brain, the environmental changes at the
turn of the twenty-frst century have caused changes in human abilities.
Similar changes happened 4,000–10,000 years ago with the turn towards
a farmer lifestyle and subsequently with the advent of hieroglyphs; this
was followed by the appearance of phonological letter-to-sound-based
 Chapter Summaries xxi
writing. Another profound literacy-related change is happening today,
noticed so far only by few, but causing multiple diagnoses of dyslexia and
other neurologically based achievement diffculties. However, a weakness
in one given culture can be an advantage in another. Highly achieving
entrepreneurs who experience dyslexia are a sign that the environment
has become advantageous for this kind of atypically developing brain.
Reading and writing modes of successful people with dyslexia may reveal
the ability changes characterising the beginning of the twenty-frst century
and, accordingly, provide hints for the development of education.

Education

Chapter 10: Entrepreneurship Education and Dyslexia:

Pedagogies and a Pilot Study by Barbara Pavey

This chapter describes the growing importance of entrepreneurship

education in the context of economic constraint. It considers the
corresponding growth of policy focus upon entrepreneurship education.
An examination of the feld reveals its diffculties including agreed
purpose, professional doubt and pedagogical uncertainty. The chapter
discusses reviews of entrepreneurship education provision, as they
progress towards the detailed recommendations of the Entrepreneurship
Competence Framework (EntreComp), identifying links with life skills
that are evident in broader conceptualisations of entrepreneurship.
A pilot study, asking entrepreneurs who experience dyslexia for their
views about school and Higher Education (HE) provision for young
learners with entrepreneurial interest or potential and also with dyslexia,
reveals concerns that courses should offer more intensifed pedagogical
opportunities. Courses also need to display and respond to a greater
awareness of the specifc learning needs of people who experience
dyslexia, and should manifest a greater willingness to accommodate them.

Chapter 11: Developing Entrepreneurs With Dyslexia Through

Higher Education (HE) in Wales by Matthew Armstrong and
Margaret Meehan

As the Welsh education system is devolved, legislation regarding disability

is not the same as in other areas of the UK, notably England. However,
Wales has recognised the importance of entrepreneurship and the
necessity of encouraging entrepreneurs at all stages of education and
xxii Chapter Summaries
beyond for its economic growth. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor
identifes resilience and self-determination as characteristics of successful
entrepreneurs. However, rather than considering ‘what’ an entrepreneur
is, the question ‘who’ is an entrepreneur is asked. Currently, more female
students are present in Welsh HE Institutions (HEIs), heralding a possible
change in the gender balance of entrepreneurs. The characteristics of
successful entrepreneurs as well as successful individuals who experience
dyslexia have been explored, and the overlap between the two is coined
in the term ‘Dyspreneur.’ The numbers of students who experience
dyslexia and pursue nursing is investigated and the parallels between
the characteristics needed by nurses and entrepreneurs are explored.
Controlling the internal Welsh market is the arena in which Wales has
infuence and one way to promote entrepreneurship is to support young
Dyspreneurs.

Chapter 12: Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG): A New Way

of Understanding the Experience of Successful People with
Dyslexia by Neil Alexander-Passe

This chapter looks at the origins of success in adults who experience

dyslexia, using both an online survey to locate successful adults with
dyslexia and a sub-group of 20 interview participants to understand the
nature and motivation of success in adults with dyslexia. School trauma
was a focus of the study using the theory of ‘Post-Trauamtic Growth’
as a means to understand how individuals can have a traumatic and
humiliating schooling but gain success post-school through the positive
use of trauma. The 30-item online survey refected the 8-main item
investigative interview script, so that both quantitative and qualitative
data could be studied. The items looked at were: personality descriptions
by others, supportive parents, trauma at school, avoidance at school,
excellence in non-academic subjects, leadership qualities, team-building,
delegation, gut intuition, use of mentors, motivation, Unique Selling Points
(USPs), risk, failure, pursuit of passions, creativity and entrepreneurship.
A consistency of response was found between the two groups researched,
with comments from the interview study enriching the responses from the
online survey to present a coherent picture of success. The interview study
indicated that school trauma could become a positive force in creating
successful and resilient individuals with dyslexia.
 Chapter Summaries xxiii
Chapter 13: Dyslexia and Entrepreneurship Education: What
Do Students Who Study in Higher Education (HE) Say? by
Margaret Meehan, Paul Adkins, Barbara Pavey and Angela
Fawcett

This chapter presents some of the preliminary results of a small-

scale pilot study involving 17 students, from two universities, who
experience dyslexia and study business as their main degree or
as modules accompanying their main discipline. Responses were
analysed from semi-structured interviews regarding the development
of entrepreneurship skills and the ways in which educational
opportunities may be improved for them. The focus here was on
two questions related to how universities help entrepreneurs who
experience dyslexia, and whether business simulation games proved
useful. Many shared themes emerged, and some interesting unique
themes were expressed. The main shared theme was that universities
need to provide a more practical/applied course. Some students
thought business games could be helpful if they mimicked real business
scenarios.

Conclusion

The Experience of Entrepreneurs With Dyslexia— by Barbara

Pavey, Neil Alexander-Passe and Margaret Meehan

The concluding chapter brings together the fndings and perceptions

generated by the exploration of the book’s topic. It begins by
focusing on how the concept of disability may be more nuanced and
variable where dyslexia is concerned and continues by discussing
the diffculties of the workplace when people experience dyslexia,
asking whether self-employment and/or entrepreneurship present
better options for some. The position of HE in supporting potential
entrepreneurs with dyslexia is discussed. The chapter considers
whether individuals with dyslexia are uniquely skilled to be
entrepreneurs, answering this question with a qualifed ‘yes,’ based
on the view that selected behaviours become successful strategies,
leading in turn to traits that support entrepreneurial endeavours and
possible entrepreneurial success. The chapter looks at the potential
for further research and includes a brief discussion of how an
xxiv Chapter Summaries
inclusive pedagogy can address the recognised concurrence between
entrepreneurship and dyslexia.

Reference
Logan, J. (2009). Dyslexic entrepreneurs: The incidence; their coping strategies and
their business skills. Dyslexia, 15, 328–334. https://doi.org/10.1002/dys.388
Introduction: Entrepreneurs With
Dyslexia
Challenge and Achievement in the
Business World
Barbara Pavey

The real-life experience of entrepreneurs with dyslexia has become

more widely recognised following the research of Julie Logan (2009).
This indicated that, in both the UK and USA, a greater than expected
proportion of entrepreneurs showed traits consistent with dyslexia, when
compared with corporate managers. The introduction of dyslexia into
the entrepreneurship narrative has attracted interest, as more people
acknowledge their own dyslexia and describe the ways in which they
have transcended their learning differences. Increasingly, successful
entrepreneurs with dyslexia who are in the business, entertainment,
creative and sporting worlds have come forward with their personal
testimonials. People across different felds now seem to be more willing to
acknowledge their learning differences and diffculties, whereas previously
these might have remained private matters.
The chapters of this book build upon the interest and stimulation
generated by existing research, to explore the topic and to extend
discussion about how young people with dyslexia and entrepreneurial
fair might be encouraged and supported in education. They include
psychological, sociological, experiential and narrative perspectives, and
embrace a range of international contexts, including those of Singapore,
2 Barbara Pavey
Wales and Southern Africa. Together the chapters describe some of
the theoretical and personal aspects clustered at the intersection of
entrepreneurship, dyslexia and education, never forgetting that beyond
any abstract considerations there are individual lives, struggles and
stories.

Foundational Concepts of Entrepreneurship

The interest in entrepreneurship has existed for centuries, and the growth
of commerce and the generation of new business are of enduring interest.
As ideas about entrepreneurship became formalised during the twentieth
century, an entrepreneur generally was viewed as someone who usually
operated on their own, challenging but also conforming to the norms
of business (De Clercq & Honig, 2011). Over time entrepreneurship
developed as an area of research interest inside the subject of business
studies, itself a branch of economics, with considerable efforts being
made to defne and refne its epistemology. The 1980s saw an increasing
focus upon entrepreneurship, being described as ‘[t]he onset of the
entrepreneurial age’ by Becker, Knudsen and Swedberg (2012, p. 920).
Attempts were made to identify the conditions and characteristics that
led to successful entrepreneurship and the generation of successful new
ventures. Accordingly, the development of entrepreneurship in individuals
has been a subject of considerable research.
The efforts to capture and facilitate conditions for the development
of entrepreneurship have gained increasing importance in times of
economic recession, because of their potential for the development of
new business opportunities. These efforts have included a drive towards
entrepreneurship education. Entrepreneurship and enterprise have become
topics of global interest in primary, secondary and Higher Education
(HE), in government initiatives and in policies.
Entrepreneurship itself remains an imprecise concept, with some deep
epistemological and ontological issues. It is open to challenge regarding
its traditional discourse of opportunity, competition, growth, power and
success measured by material means. Consequently, there has been a
considerable amount of literature discussing the nature of entrepreneurs
and entrepreneurship. Associated with this there has been literature about
how, and indeed if, entrepreneurship can be taught (see for example
Marram, Lange, Brown, Marquis, & Bygrave, 2014). Entrepreneurship
 Introduction: Entrepreneurs With Dyslexia 3
concepts and defnitions continue to be analysed and criticised, giving rise
to publications which seek to challenge pedagogies and to offer alternative
curricular structures for entrepreneurship education.
Entrepreneurship offers the prospect of hope and success, through
its potential for the generation of wealth through individual effort.
It supports the concept of a creative fowering of skills and abilities,
leading to individual and social goods. The concepts of human and
social capital are seen as important for entrepreneurial activity, to the
point where social capital is suggested as a foundational theory for
entrepreneurship (Gedajlovic, Honig, Moore, Payne, & Wright, 2013),
refecting the social contexts in which entrepreneurial activity takes place.
However, an understanding of entrepreneurship is subject to the defnition
being used. In parallel with discussions of dyslexia, entrepreneurship can
be found described in terms of both narrow and broad defnitions.

Defning Entrepreneurship
The descriptions and understandings of entrepreneurship have been
contested areas. Defnitions have varied from broad views that include
individual activity in the arts and in sports to defnitions suggesting
that only a person who develops a successful business should be called
entrepreneurial.
Later twentieth and early twenty-frst century understandings of
entrepreneurship have tended to separate it from self-employment and
from enterprise (Bolton & Thompson, 2004), with entrepreneurs being
considered separately from owner-managers and from self-employed
individuals working in traditional trades. Furthermore, there has been a
difference between more stringent views originating from US and a wider,
European view which linked entrepreneurship competencies with qualities
similar to those for life skills or transferable skills. The USA took a robust
position in the white paper, ‘Embracing Innovation: Entrepreneurship
and American Economic Growth’ (Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation,
2000). This defned entrepreneurship as providing: ‘[m]ore jobs, better
quality of life, success in global markets and reinvestment of new wealth’
(NCOE, 2000, p. 8).
Similarly, the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index 2018
(GEDI) challenged a conceptualisation of small business owners as
entrepreneurs (Acs, Szerb, & Lloyd, 2017). Acs et al. consider that people
4 Barbara Pavey
working for themselves are not necessarily entrepreneurs unless they plan
‘scalable, high-growth businesses’ (p. 18). However, while their defnition
is restricted, these authors feel that it can also be considered as broad
because it applies to entrepreneurial efforts anywhere in the world and
within any social group. Gompers, Kovner, Lerner, and Scharfstein (2008),
too, refer to entrepreneurial success in terms of businesses that go public,
that is businesses that provide the public with the opportunity to invest
in the company. The authors suggest that being considered a successful
entrepreneur is something of a self-fulflling prophecy, since being
successful would be the factor that resulted in this label being applied to
an individual.
In contrast, European entrepreneurship initiatives have been concerned
with increasing quality of life and the social good. The route to economic
well-being for individuals has been seen as residing in the increase of their
human capital and social capital (Healy & Côté, 2001), with a policy
focus upon social inclusion, the fght against poverty and the creation of
opportunities to overcome youth unemployment. In 2016, the European
Commission published the Entrepreneurship Competence Framework,
known as the EntreComp (Bacigalupo, Kampyis, Punie, & van den
Brande, 2016). This document identifed entrepreneurship as being
relevant across the entire spectrum of daily life, rather than focusing upon
generating new businesses.
It saw entrepreneurship as covering wider social territory:

[f]rom nurturing personal development, to actively participating

in society, to (re)entering the job market as an employee or as a
self-employed person, and also to starting up ventures (cultural,
social or commercial). It builds upon a broad defnition of
entrepreneurship that hinges on the creation of cultural, social or
economic value.
(Bacigalupo et al., 2016, p. 6)

Within this broad defnition, the EntreComp did not restrict ‘value’
to fnancial effects and it embraced individual efforts to build sole-trader
businesses.
In 2018, the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) followed this
defnition by issuing enterprise and entrepreneurship education guidance
for UK Education (HE) providers. The document reviewed and built upon
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rule, therefore, every current of air at or near the equator has
passed obliquely over an immense extent of tropical surface and is
thus necessarily a warm wind.
In the north temperate zone, on the other hand, the winds are
always cool, and often of very low temperature even in the height of
summer, due probably to their coming from colder northern regions
as easterly winds, or from the upper parts of the atmosphere as
westerly winds; and this constant supply of cool air, combined with
quick radiation through a dryer atmosphere, carries off the solar
heat so rapidly that an equilibrium is only reached at a comparatively
low temperature. In the equatorial zone, on the contrary, the heat
accumulates, on account of the absence of any medium of
sufficiently low temperature to carry it off rapidly, and it thus soon
reaches a point high enough to produce those scorching effects
which are so puzzling when the altitude of the sun or the indications
of the thermometer are alone considered. Whenever, as is
sometimes the case, exceptional cold occurs near the equator, it can
almost always be traced to the influence of currents of air of
unusually low temperature. Thus in July near the Aru islands, the
writer experienced a strong south-east wind which almost
neutralised the usual effects of tropical heat although the weather
was bright and sunny. But the wind, coming direct from the southern
ocean during its winter without acquiring heat by passing over land,
was of an unusually low temperature. Again, Mr. Bates informs us
that in the Upper Amazon in the month of May there is a regularly
recurring south wind which produces a remarkable lowering of the
usual equatorial temperature. But owing to the increased velocity of
the earth’s surface at the equator a south wind there must have
been a south-west wind at its origin, and this would bring it directly
from the high chain of the Peruvian Andes during the winter of the
southern hemisphere. It is therefore probably a cold mountain wind,
and blowing as it does over a continuous forest it has been unable to
acquire the usual tropical warmth.
 The cause of the striking contrast between the climates of
equatorial and temperate lands at times when both are receiving an
approximately equal amount of solar heat may perhaps be made
clearer by an illustration. Let us suppose there to be two reservoirs
of water, each supplied by a pipe which pours into it a thousand
gallons a day, but which runs only during the daytime, being cut off
at night. The reservoirs are both leaky, but while the one loses at the
rate of nine hundred gallons in the twenty-four hours the other loses
at the rate of eleven hundred gallons in the same time, supposing
that both are kept exactly half full and thus subjected to the same
uniform water-pressure. If now both are left to be supplied by the
above-mentioned pipes the result will be, that in the one which loses
by leakage less than it receives the water will rise day by day, till the
increased pressure causes the leakage to increase so as exactly to
balance the supply; while in the other the water will sink till the
decreasing pressure causes the leakage to decrease so as to balance
the supply, when both will remain stationary, the one at a high the
other at a low average level, each rising during the day and sinking
again at night. Just the same thing occurs with that great heat-
reservoir the earth, whose actual temperature at any spot will
depend, not alone upon the quantity of heat it receives, but on the
balance between its constantly varying waste and supply. We can
thus understand how it is that, although in the months of June and
July Scotland in latitude 57° north receives as much sun-heat as
Angola or Timor in latitude 10° south, and for a much greater
number of hours daily, yet in the latter the mean temperature will be
about 80° Fahr., with a daily maximum of 90° to 95°, while in the
former the mean will be about 60° Fahr. with a daily maximum of
70° or 75°; and, while in Scotland exposure to the full noonday sun
produces no unpleasant heat-sensations, a similar exposure in Timor
at any time between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. would blister the skin in a few
minutes almost as effectually as the application of scalding water.
 Heat Due to the Condensation of Atmospheric Vapour.—Another
cause which tends to keep up a uniform high temperature in the
equatorial, as compared with the variable temperatures of the extra-
tropical zones, is the large amount of heat liberated during the
condensation of the aqueous vapour of the atmosphere in the form
of rain and dew. Owing to the frequent near approach of the
equatorial atmosphere to the saturation point, and the great weight
of vapour its high temperature enables it to hold in suspension, a
very slight fall of the thermometer is accompanied by the
condensation of a large absolute quantity of atmospheric vapour, so
that copious dews and heavy showers of rain are produced at
comparatively high temperatures and low altitudes. The drops of rain
rapidly increase in size while falling through the saturated
atmosphere; and during this process as well as by the formation of
dew, the heat which retained the water in the gaseous form, and
was insensible while doing so, is liberated, and thus helps to keep up
the high temperature of the air. This production of heat is almost
always going on. In fine weather the nights are always dewy, and
the diagram on the preceding page showing the mean monthly
rainfall at Batavia and Greenwich proves that this source of
increased temperature is present during every month in the year,
since the lowest monthly fall at the former place is almost equal to
the highest monthly fall at the latter.
 Monthly Rainfall at London and Batavia.

It may perhaps be objected, that evaporation must absorb as

much heat as is afterwards liberated by condensation, and this is
true; but as evaporation and condensation occur usually at different
times and in different places, the equalising effect is still very
important. Evaporation occurs chiefly during the hottest sunshine,
when it tends to moderate the extreme heat, while condensation
takes place chiefly at night in the form of dew and rain, when the
liberated heat helps to make up for the loss of the direct rays of the
sun. Again, the most copious condensation both of dew and rain is
greatly influenced by vegetation and especially by forests, and also
by the presence of hills and mountains, and is therefore greater on
land than on the ocean; while evaporation is much greater on the
ocean, both on account of the less amount of cloudy weather and
because the air is more constantly in motion. This is particularly the
case throughout that large portion of the tropical and subtropical
zones where the trade-winds constantly blow, as the evaporation
must there be enormous while the quantity of rain is very small. It
follows, then, that on the equatorial land-surface there will be a
considerable balance of condensation over evaporation which must
tend to the general raising of the temperature, and, owing to the
condensation being principally at night, not less powerfully to its
equalisation.
General Features of the Equatorial Climate.—The various causes
now enumerated are sufficient to enable us to understand how the
great characteristic features of the climate of the equatorial zone are
brought about; how it is that so high a temperature is maintained
during the absence of the sun at night, and why so little effect is
produced by the sun’s varying altitude during its passage from the
northern to the southern tropic. In this favoured zone the heat is
never oppressive, as it so often becomes on the borders of the
tropics; and the large absolute amount of moisture always present in
the air, is almost as congenial to the health of man as it is favourable
to the growth and development of vegetation.[2] Again, the lowering
of the temperature at night is so regular and yet so strictly limited in
amount, that, although never cold enough to be unpleasant, the
nights are never so oppressively hot as to prevent sleep. During the
wettest months of the year, it is rare to have many days in
succession without some hours of sunshine, while even in the driest
months there are occasional showers to cool and refresh the
overheated earth. As a result of this condition of the earth and
atmosphere, there is no check to vegetation, and little if any
demarcation of the seasons. Plants are all evergreen; flowers and
fruits, although more abundant at certain seasons, are never
altogether absent; while many annual food-plants as well as some
fruit-trees produce two crops a year. In other cases, more than one
complete year is required to mature the large and massive fruits, so
that it is not uncommon for fruit to be ripe at the same time that the
tree is covered with flowers, in preparation for the succeeding crop.
This is the case with the Brazil nut tree, in the forests of the
Amazon, and with many other tropical as with a few temperate
fruits.
[2] Where the inhabitants adapt their mode of life to the peculiarities of
the climate, as is the case with the Dutch in the Malay Archipelago, they enjoy
as robust health as in Europe, both in the case of persons born in Europe and
of those who for generations have lived under a vertical sun.

Uniformity of the Equatorial Climate in all Parts of the Globe.—

The description of the climatal phenomena of the equatorial zone
here given, has been in great part drawn from long personal
experience in South America and in the Malay Archipelago. Over a
large portion of these countries the same general features prevail,
only modified by varying local conditions. Whether we are at
Singapore or Batavia; in the Moluccas, or New Guinea; at Para, at
the sources of the Rio Negro, or on the Upper Amazon, the
equatorial climate is essentially the same, and we have no reason to
believe that it materially differs in Guinea or the Congo. In certain
localities, however, a more contrasted wet and dry season prevails,
with a somewhat greater range of the thermometer. This is generally
associated with a sandy soil, and a less dense forest, or with an
open and more cultivated country. The open sandy country with
scattered trees and shrubs or occasional thickets, which is found at
Santarem and Monte-Alegre on the lower Amazon, are examples, as
well as the open cultivated plains of Southern Celebes; but in both
cases the forest country in adjacent districts has a moister and more
uniform climate, so that it seems probable that the nature of the soil
or the artificial clearing away of the forests, are important agents in
producing the departure from the typical equatorial climate observed
in such districts. The almost rainless district of Ceara on the North-
East coast of Brazil and only a few degrees south of the equator, is a
striking example of the need of vegetation to react on the rainfall.
We have here no apparent cause but the sandy soil and bare hills,
which when heated by the equatorial sun produce ascending
currents of warm air and thus prevent the condensation of the
atmospheric vapour, to account for such an anomaly; and there is
probably no district where judicious planting would produce such
striking and beneficial effects. In Central India the scanty and
intermittent rainfall, with its fearful accompaniment of famine, is no
doubt in great part due to the absence of a sufficient proportion of
forest-covering to the earth’s surface; and it is to a systematic
planting of all the hill tops, elevated ridges, and higher slopes that
we can alone look for a radical cure of the evil. This would almost
certainly induce an increased rainfall; but even more important and
more certain, is the action of forests in checking evaporation from
the soil and causing perennial springs to flow, which may be
collected in vast storage tanks and will serve to fertilise a great
extent of country; whereas tanks without regular rainfall or
permanent springs to supply them are worthless. In the colder parts
of the temperate zones, the absence of forests is not so much felt,
because the hills and uplands are naturally clothed with a thick
coating of turf which absorbs moisture and does not become
overheated by the sun’s rays, and the rains are seldom violent
enough to strip this protective covering from the surface. In tropical
and even in south-temperate countries, on the other hand, the rains
are periodical and often of excessive violence for a short period; and
when the forests are cleared away the torrents of rain soon strip off
the vegetable soil, and thus destroy in a few years the fertility which
has been the growth of many centuries. The bare subsoil becoming
heated by the sun, every particle of moisture which does not flow off
is evaporated, and this again reacts on the climate, producing long-
continued droughts only relieved by sudden and violent storms,
which add to the destruction and render all attempts at cultivation
unavailing. Wide tracts of fertile land in the south of Europe have
been devastated in this manner, and have become absolutely
uninhabitable. Knowingly to produce such disastrous results would
be a far more serious offence than any destruction of property which
human labour has produced and can replace; yet we ignorantly allow
such extensive clearings for coffee cultivation in India and Ceylon, as
to cause the destruction of much fertile soil which generations
cannot replace, and which will surely, if not checked in time, lead to
the deterioration of the climate and the permanent impoverishment
of the country.[3]
[3] For a terrible picture of the irreparable devastation caused by the
reckless clearing of forests see the third chapter of Mr. Marsh’s work The Earth
as Modified by Human Action.

Short Twilight of the Equatorial Zone.—One of the phenomena

which markedly distinguish the equatorial from the temperate and
polar zones, is the shortness of the twilight and consequent rapid
transition from day to night and from night to day. As this depends
only on the fact of the sun descending vertically instead of obliquely
below the horizon, the difference is most marked when we compare
our midsummer twilight with that of the tropics. Even with us the
duration of twilight is very much shorter at the time of the
equinoxes, and it is probably not much more than a third shorter
than this at the equator. Travellers usually exaggerate the shortness
of the tropical twilight, it being sometimes said that if we turn a
page of the book we are reading when the sun disappears, by the
time we turn over the next page it will be too dark to see to read.
With an average book and an average reader this is certainly not
true, and it will be well to describe as correctly as we can what really
happens.
In fine weather the air appears to be somewhat more
transparent near the equator than with us, and the intensity of
sunlight is usually very great up to the moment when the solar orb
touches the horizon. As soon as it has disappeared the apparent
gloom is proportionally great, but this hardly increases perceptibly
during the first ten minutes. During the next ten minutes however it
becomes rapidly darker, and at the end of about twenty-five minutes
from sunset the complete darkness of night is almost reached. In
the morning the changes are perhaps even more striking. Up to
about a quarter past five o’clock the darkness is complete; but about
that time a few cries of birds begin to break the silence of night,
perhaps indicating that signs of dawn are perceptible in the eastern
horizon. A little later the melancholy voices of the goatsuckers are
heard, varied croakings of frogs, the plaintive whistle of mountain
thrushes, and strange cries of birds or mammals peculiar to each
locality. About half-past five the first glimmer of light becomes
perceptible; it slowly becomes lighter, and then increases so rapidly
that at about a quarter to six it seems full daylight. For the next
quarter of an hour this changes very little in character; when,
suddenly, the sun’s rim appears above the horizon, decking the dew-
laden foliage with glittering gems, sending gleams of golden light far
into the woods, and waking up all nature to life and activity. Birds
chirp and flutter about, parrots scream, monkeys chatter, bees hum
among the flowers, and gorgeous butterflies flutter lazily along or sit
with fully expanded wings exposed to the warm and invigorating
rays. The first hour of morning in the equatorial regions possesses a
charm and a beauty that can never be forgotten. All nature seems
refreshed and strengthened by the coolness and moisture of the
past night; new leaves and buds unfold almost before the eye, and
fresh shoots may often be observed to have grown many inches
since the preceding day. The temperature is the most delicious
conceivable. The slight chill of early dawn, which was itself
agreeable, is succeeded by an invigorating warmth; and the intense
sunshine lights up the glorious vegetation of the tropics, and realises
all that the magic art of the painter or the glowing words of the
poet, have pictured as their ideals of terrestrial beauty.
The Aspect of the Equatorial Heavens.—Within the limits of the
equatorial zone the noonday sun is truly vertical twice every year,
and for several months it passes so near the zenith that the
difference can hardly be detected without careful observation of the
very short shadows of vertical objects. The absence of distinct
horizontal shadows at noon which thus characterises a considerable
part of the year, is itself a striking phenomenon to an inhabitant of
the temperate zones; and equally striking is the changed aspect of
the starry heavens. The grand constellation Orion, passes vertically
overhead, while the Great Bear is only to be seen low down in the
northern heavens, and the Pole star either appears close to the
horizon or has altogether disappeared according as we are north or
south of the equator. Towards the south the Southern Cross, the
Magellanic clouds, and the jet-black “coal sacks” are the most
conspicuous objects invisible in our northern latitudes. The same
cause that brings the sun overhead in its daily march equally affects
the planets, which appear high up towards the zenith far more
frequently than with us, thus affording splendid opportunities for
telescopic observation.
Intensity of Meteorological Phenomena at the Equator.—The
excessive violence of meteorological phenomena generally supposed
to be characteristic of the tropics is not by any means remarkable in
the equatorial zone. Electrical disturbances are much more frequent,
but not generally more violent than in the temperate regions. The
wind-storms are rarely of excessive violence, as might in fact be
inferred from the extreme steadiness of the barometer, whose daily
range at Batavia rarely exceeds one-eighth of an inch, while the
extreme range during three years was less than one-third of an inch!
The amount of the rainfall is very great, seventy or eighty inches in a
year being a probable average; and as the larger part of this occurs
during three or four months, individual rainfalls are often
exceedingly heavy. The greatest fall recorded at Batavia during three
years was three inches and eight-tenths in one hour,[4] but this was
quite exceptional, and even half this quantity is very unusual. The
greatest rainfall recorded in twenty-four hours is seven inches and a
quarter; but more than four inches in one day occurs only on two or
three occasions in a year. The blue colour of the sky is probably not
so intense as in many parts of the temperate zone, while the
brilliancy of the moon and stars is not perceptibly greater than that
of our clearest frosty nights, and is undoubtedly much inferior to
what is witnessed in many desert regions, and even in Southern
Europe.
[4] On January 10th, 1867, from 1 to 2 a.m.

On the whole, then, we must decide, that uniformity and

abundance, rather than any excessive manifestations, are the
prevailing characteristic of all the climatal phenomena of the
equatorial zone.
Concluding Remarks.—We cannot better conclude our account of
the equatorial climate than by quoting the following vivid description
of the physical phenomena which occur during the early part of the
dry season at Para. It is taken from Mr. Bates’ Naturalist on the
Amazons, and clearly exhibits some of the more characteristic
features of a typical equatorial day.
“At that early period of the day (the first two hours after sunrise)
the sky was invariably cloudless, the thermometer marking 72° or
73° Fahr.; the heavy dew or the previous night’s rain, which lay on
the moist foliage, becoming quickly dissipated by the glowing sun,
which, rising straight out of the east, mounted rapidly towards the
zenith. All nature was fresh, new leaf and flower-buds expanding
rapidly. * * * The heat increased hourly, and towards two o’clock
reached 92° to 93° Fahr., by which time every voice of bird and
mammal was hushed. The leaves, which were so moist and fresh in
early morning, now became lax and drooping, and flowers shed their
petals. On most days in June and July a heavy shower would fall
some time in the afternoon, producing a most welcome coolness.
The approach of the rain-clouds was after a uniform fashion very
interesting to observe. First, the cool sea-breeze which had
commenced to blow about ten o’clock, and which had increased in
force with the increasing power of the sun, would flag, and finally
die away. The heat and electric tension of the atmosphere would
then become almost insupportable. Languor and uneasiness would
seize on every one, even the denizens of the forest betraying it by
their motions. White clouds would appear in the east and gather into
cumuli, with an increasing blackness along their lower portions. The
whole eastern horizon would become almost suddenly black, and
this would spread upwards, the sun at length becoming obscured.
Then the rush of a mighty wind is heard through the forest, swaying
the tree-tops; a vivid flash of lightning bursts forth, then a crash of
thunder, and down streams the deluging rain. Such storms soon
cease, leaving bluish-black motionless clouds in the sky until night.
Meantime all nature is refreshed; but heaps of flower-petals and
fallen leaves are seen under the trees. Towards evening life revives
again, and the ringing uproar is resumed from bush and tree. The
following morning the sun again rises in a cloudless sky; and so the
cycle is completed; spring, summer, and autumn, as it were in one
tropical day. The days are more or less like this throughout the year.
A little difference exists between the dry and wet seasons; but
generally, the dry season, which lasts from July to December, is
varied with showers, and the wet, from January to June, with sunny
days. It results from this,—that the periodical phenomena of plants
and animals do not take place at about the same time in all species,
or in the individuals of any given species, as they do in temperate
countries. In Europe, a woodland scene has its spring, its summer,
its autumnal, and its winter aspects. In the equatorial forests the
aspect is the same or nearly so every day in the year: budding,
flowering, fruiting, and leaf-shedding are always going on in one
species or other. It is never either spring, summer, or autumn, but
each day is a combination of all three. With the day and night
always of equal length, the atmospheric disturbances of each day
neutralising themselves before each succeeding morn; with the sun
in its course proceeding midway across the sky, and the daily
temperature almost the same throughout the year—how grand in its
perfect equilibrium and simplicity is the march of Nature under the
equator!”
 II.

EQUATORIAL VEGETATION.
The Equatorial Forest-Belt and its Causes—General features of the Equatorial
Forests—Low-growth Forest-trees—Flowery trunks and their probable cause—
Uses of Equatorial Forest-trees—The Climbing Plants of the Equatorial Forests
—Palms—Uses of Palm-trees and their Products—Ferns—Ginger-worts and
wild Bananas—Arums—Screw-pines—Orchids—Bamboos—Uses of the
Bamboo—Mangroves—Sensitive-plants—Comparative scarcity of Flowers—
Concluding Remarks on Tropical Vegetation.

In the following sketch of the characteristics of vegetable life in the

equatorial zone, it is not intended to enter into any scientific details
or to treat the subject in the slightest degree from a botanical point
of view; but merely to describe those general features of vegetation
which are almost or quite peculiar to this region of the globe, and
which are so general as to be characteristic of the greater part of it
rather than of any particular country or continent within its limits.
The Equatorial Forest-Belt and its Causes.—With but few and
unimportant exceptions a great forest band from a thousand to
fifteen hundred miles in width girdles the earth at the equator,
clothing hill, plain, and mountain with an evergreen mantle. Lofty
peaks and precipitous ridges are sometimes bare, but often the
woody covering continues to a height of eight or ten thousand feet,
as in some of the volcanic mountains of Java and on portions of the
Eastern Andes. Beyond the forests both to the north and south, we
meet first with woody and then open country, soon changing into
arid plains or even deserts which form an almost continuous band in
the vicinity of the two tropics. On the line of the tropic of Cancer we
have, in America the deserts and dry plains of New Mexico; in Africa
the Sahara; and in Asia, the Arabian deserts, those of Beloochistan
and Western India, and further east the dry plains of North China
and Mongolia. On the tropic of Capricorn we have, in America the
Grand Chaco desert and the Pampas; in Africa the Kalahari desert
and the dry plains north of the Limpopo; while the deserts and
waterless plains of Central Australia complete the arid zone. These
great contrasts of verdure and barrenness occurring in parallel bands
all round the globe, must evidently depend on the general laws
which determine the distribution of moisture over the earth, more or
less modified by local causes. Without going into meteorological
details, some of which have been given in the preceding chapter, the
main facts may be explained by the mode in which the great aerial
currents are distributed. The trade winds passing over the ocean
from north-east to south-west with an oblique tendency towards the
equator, become saturated with vapour, and are ready to give out
moisture whenever they are forced upwards or in any other way
have their temperature lowered. The entire equatorial zone becomes
thus charged with vapour-laden air which is the primary necessity of
a luxuriant vegetation. The surplus air (produced by the meeting of
the two trade winds) which is ever rising in the equatorial belt and
giving up its store of vapour, flows off north and south as dry, cool
air, and descends to the earth in the vicinity of the tropics. Here it
sucks up whatever moisture it meets with and thus tends to keep
this zone in an arid condition. The trades themselves are believed to
be supplied by descending currents from the temperate zones, and
these are at first equally dry and only become vapour-laden when
they have passed over some extent of moist surface. At the solstices
the sun passes vertically over the vicinity of the tropics for several
weeks, and this further aggravates the aridity; and wherever the soil
is sandy and there are no lofty mountain-chains to supply ample
irrigation the result is a more or less perfect desert. Analogous
causes, which a study of aerial currents will render intelligible, have
produced other great forest-belts in the northern and southern parts
of the temperate zones; but owing to the paucity of land in the
southern hemisphere these are best seen in North America and
Northern Euro-Asia, where they form the great northern forests of
deciduous trees and of Coniferæ. These being comparatively well
known to us, will form the standard by a reference to which we shall
endeavour to point out and render intelligible the distinctive
characteristics of the equatorial forest vegetation.
General Features of the Equatorial Forests.—It is not easy to fix
upon the most distinctive features of these virgin forests, which
nevertheless impress themselves upon the beholder as something
quite unlike those of temperate lands, and as possessing a grandeur
and sublimity altogether their own. Amid the countless modifications
in detail which these forests present, we shall endeavour to point
out the chief peculiarities as well as the more interesting phenomena
which generally characterise them.
The observer new to the scene would perhaps be first struck by
the varied yet symmetrical trunks, which rise up with perfect
straightness to a great height without a branch, and which, being
placed at a considerable average distance apart, give an impression
similar to that produced by the columns of some enormous building.
Overhead, at a height, perhaps, of a hundred feet, is an almost
unbroken canopy of foliage formed by the meeting together of these
great trees and their interlacing branches; and this canopy is usually
so dense that but an indistinct glimmer of the sky is to be seen, and
even the intense tropical sunlight only penetrates to the ground
subdued and broken up into scattered fragments. There is a weird
gloom and a solemn silence, which combine to produce a sense of
the vast—the primeval—almost of the infinite. It is a world in which
man seems an intruder, and where he feels overwhelmed by the
contemplation of the ever-acting forces, which, from the simple
elements of the atmosphere, build up the great mass of vegetation
which overshadows, and almost seems to oppress the earth.
Characteristics of the Larger Forest-trees.—Passing from the
general impression to the elements of which the scene is composed,
the observer is struck by the great diversity of the details amid the
general uniformity. Instead of endless repetitions of the same forms
of trunk such as are to be seen in our pine, or oak, or beech woods,
the eye wanders from one tree to another and rarely detects two of
the same species. All are tall and upright columns, but they differ
from each other more than do the columns of Gothic, Greek, and
Egyptian temples. Some are almost cylindrical, rising up out of the
ground as if their bases were concealed by accumulations of the soil;
others get much thicker near the ground like our spreading oaks;
others again, and these are very characteristic, send out towards the
base flat and wing-like projections. These projections are thin slabs
radiating from the main trunk, from which they stand out like the
buttresses of a Gothic cathedral. They rise to various heights on the
tree, from five or six, to twenty or thirty feet; they often divide as
they approach the ground, and sometimes twist and curve along the
surface for a considerable distance, forming elevated and greatly
compressed roots. These buttresses are sometimes so large that the
spaces between them if roofed over would form huts capable of
containing several persons. Their use is evidently to give the tree an
extended base, and so assist the subterranean roots in maintaining
in an erect position so lofty a column crowned by a broad and
massive head of branches and foliage. The buttressed trees belong
to a variety of distinct groups. Thus, many of the Bombaceæ or silk-
cotton trees, several of the Leguminosæ, and perhaps many trees
belonging to other natural orders, possess these appendages.
There is another form of tree, hardly less curious, in which the
trunk, though generally straight and cylindrical, is deeply furrowed
and indented, appearing as if made up of a number of small trees
grown together at the centre. Sometimes the junction of what seem
to be the component parts, is so imperfect, that gaps or holes are
left by which you can see through the trunk in various places. At first
one is disposed to think this is caused by accident or decay, but
repeated examination shows it be due to the natural growth of the
tree. The accompanying outline sections of one of these trees that
was cut down, exhibits its character. It was a noble forest-tree, more
than 200 feet high, but rather slender in proportion, and it was by
no means an extreme example of its class. This peculiar form is
probably produced by the downward growth of aerial roots, like
some New Zealand trees whose growth has been traced, and of
whose different stages drawings may be seen at the Library of the
Linnean Society. These commence their existence as parasitical
climbers which take root in the fork of some forest-tree and send
down aerial roots which clasp round the stem that upholds them. As
these roots increase in size and grow together laterally they cause
the death of their foster-parent. The climber then grows rapidly,
sending out large branches above and spreading roots below, and as
the supporting tree decays away the aerial roots grow together and
form a new trunk, more or less furrowed and buttressed, but
exhibiting no other marks of its exceptional origin. Aerial-rooted
forest-trees—like that figured in my Malay Archipelago (vol. i. p. 131)
—and the equally remarkable fig-trees of various species, whose
trunks are formed by a miniature forest of aerial roots, sometimes
separate, sometimes matted together, are characteristic of the
Eastern tropics, but appear to be rare or altogether unknown in
America, and can therefore hardly be included among the general
characteristics of the equatorial zone.
 Sections of trunk of a Bornean Forest-tree.
1. Section at seven feet from the ground.
2. 3. Sections much higher up.

Besides the varieties of form, however, the tree-trunks of these

forests present many peculiarities of colour and texture. The
majority are rather smooth-barked, and many are of peculiar
whitish, green, yellowish, or brown colours, or occasionally nearly
black. Some are perfectly smooth, others deeply cracked and
furrowed, while in a considerable number the bark splits off in flakes
or hangs down in long fibrous ribands. Spined or prickly trunks
(except of palms) are rare in the damp equatorial forests. Turning
our gaze upwards from the stems to the foliage, we find two types
of leaf not common in the temperate zone, although the great mass
of the trees offer nothing very remarkable in this respect. First, we
have many trees with large, thick, and glossy leaves, like those of
the cherry-laurel or the magnolia, but even larger, smoother, and
more symmetrical. The leaves of the Asiatic caoutchouc-tree (Ficus
elastica), so often cultivated in houses, is a type of this class, which
has a very fine effect among the more ordinary-looking foliage.
Contrasted with this is the fine pinnate foliage of some of the largest
forest-trees which, seen far aloft against the sky, looks as delicate as
that of the sensitive mimosa.
Forest-trees of Low Growth.—The great trees we have hitherto
been describing form, however, but a portion of the forest. Beneath
their lofty canopy there often exists a second forest of moderate-
sized trees, whose crowns, perhaps forty or fifty feet high, do not
touch the lowermost branches of those above them. These are of
course shade-loving trees, and their presence effectually prevents
the growth of any young trees of the larger kinds, until, overcome by
age and storms, some monarch of the forest falls down, and,
carrying destruction in its fall, opens up a considerable space, into
which sun and air can penetrate. Then comes a race for existence
among the seedlings of the surrounding trees, in which a few
ultimately prevail and fill up the space vacated by their predecessor.
Yet beneath this second set of medium-sized forest-trees there is
often a third undergrowth of small trees, from six to ten feet high, of
dwarf palms, of tree-ferns, and of gigantic herbaceous ferns. Coming
to the surface of the ground itself we find much variety. Sometimes
it is completely bare, a mass of decaying leaves and twigs and fallen
fruits. More frequently it is covered with a dense carpet of selaginella
or other lycopodiaceæ, and these sometimes give place to a variety
of herbaceous plants, sometimes with pretty, but rarely with very
conspicuous flowers.
Flowering Trunks and their Probable Cause.—Among the minor
but not unimportant peculiarities that characterise these lofty
forests, is the curious way in which many of the smaller trees have
their flowers situated on the main trunk or larger branches instead
of on the upper part of the tree. The cacao-tree is a well-known
example of this peculiarity, which is not uncommon in tropical
forests; and some of the smaller trunks are occasionally almost
hidden by the quantity of fruit produced on them. One of the most
beautiful examples of this mode of flowering is a small tree of the
genus Polyalthea, belonging to the family of the custard-apples, not
uncommon in the forests of North-western Borneo. Its slender trunk,
about fifteen or twenty feet high, was completely covered with star-
shaped flowers, three inches across and of a rich orange-red colour,
making the trees look as if they had been artificially decorated with
brilliant garlands. The recent discoveries as to the important part
played by insects in the fertilization of flowers offers a very probable
explanation of this peculiarity. Bees and butterflies are the greatest
flower-haunters. The former love the sun and frequent open grounds
or the flowery tops of the lofty forest-trees fully exposed to the sun
and air. The forest shades are frequented by thousands of
butterflies, but these mostly keep near the ground, where they have
a free passage among the tree-trunks and visit the flowering shrubs
and herbaceous plants. To attract these it is necessary that flowers
should be low down and conspicuous. If they grew in the usual way
on the tops of these smaller trees overshadowed by the dense
canopy above them they would be out of sight of both groups of
insects, but being placed openly on the stems, and in the greatest
profusion, they cannot fail to attract the attention of the wandering
butterflies.
Uses of Equatorial Forest-trees.—Amid this immense variety of
trees, the natives have found out such as are best adapted to certain
purposes. The wood of some is light and soft, and is used for floats
or for carving out rude images, stools, and ornaments for boats and
houses. The flat slabs of the buttresses are often used to make
paddles. Some of the trees with furrowed stems are exceedingly
strong and durable, serving as posts for houses or as piles on which
the water-villages are built. Canoes, formed from a trunk hollowed
out and spread open under the action of heat, require one kind of
wood, those built up with planks another; and, as the species of
trees in these forests are so much more numerous than the wants of
a semi-civilized population, there are probably a large number of
kinds of timber which will some day be found to be well adapted to
the special requirements of the arts and sciences. The products of
the trees of the equatorial forests, notwithstanding our imperfect
knowledge of them, are already more useful to civilized man than to
the indigenous inhabitants. To mention only a few of those whose
names are tolerably familiar to us, we have such valuable woods as
mahogany, teak, ebony, lignum-vitæ, purple-heart, iron-wood,
sandal-wood, and satin-wood; such useful gums as india-rubber,
gutta-percha, tragacanth, copal, lac, and dammar; such dyes as are
yielded by log-wood, brazil-wood, and sappan-wood; such drugs as
the balsams of Capivi and Tolu, camphor, benzoin, catechu or terra-
japonica, cajuput oil, gamboge, quinine, Angostura bark, quassia,
and the urari and upas poisons; of spices we have cloves, cinnamon,
and nutmegs; and of fruits, brazil-nuts, tamarinds, guavas, and the
valuable cacao; while residents in our tropical colonies enjoy the
bread-fruit, avocado-pear, custard-apple, durian, mango,
mangosteen, soursop, papaw, and many others. This list of useful
products from the exogenous trees alone of the equatorial forests,
excluding those from the palms, shrubs, herbs, and creepers, might
have been multiplied many times over by the introduction of articles
whose names would be known only to those interested in special
arts or sciences; but imperfect as it is, it will serve to afford a notion
of the value of this vast treasure-house which is as yet but very
partially explored.
The Climbing Plants of the Equatorial Forests.—Next to the trees
themselves the most conspicuous and remarkable feature of the
tropical forests is the profusion of woody creepers and climbers that
everywhere meet the eye. They twist around the slenderer stems,
they drop down pendent from the branches, they stretch tightly from
tree to tree, they hang looped in huge festoons from bough to
bough, they twist in great serpentine coils or lie in entangled masses
on the ground. Some are slender, smooth, and root-like; others are
rugged or knotted; often they are twined together into veritable
cables; some are flat like ribands, others are curiously waved and
indented. Where they spring from or how they grow is at first a
complete puzzle. They pass overhead from tree to tree, they stretch
in tight cordage like the rigging of a ship from the top of one tree to
the base of another, and the upper regions of the forest often seem
full of them without our being able to detect any earth-growing stem
from which they arise. The conclusion is at length forced upon us
that these woody climbers must possess the two qualities of very
long life and almost indefinite longitudinal growth, for by these
suppositions alone can we explain their characteristic features. The
growth of climbers, even more than all other plants, is upward
towards the light. In the shade of the forest they rarely or never
flower, and seldom even produce foliage; but when they have
reached the summit of the tree that supports them, they expand
under the genial influence of light and air, and often cover their
foster-parent with blossoms not its own. Here, as a rule, the
climber’s growth would cease; but the time comes when the
supporting tree rots and falls, and the creeper comes with it in torn
and tangled masses to the ground. But though its foster-parent is
dead it has itself received no permanent injury, but shoots out again
till it finds a fresh support, mounts another tree, and again puts
forth its leaves and flowers. In time the old tree rots entirely away
and the creeper remains tangled on the ground. Sometimes
branches only fall and carry a portion of the creeper tightly stretched
to an adjoining tree; at other times the whole tree is arrested by a
neighbour to which the creeper soon transfers itself in order to reach
the upper light. When by the fall of a branch the creepers are left
hanging in the air, they may be blown about by the wind and catch
hold of trees growing up beneath them, and thus become festooned
from one tree to another. When these accidents and changes have
been again and again repeated the climber may have travelled very
far from its parent stem, and may have mounted to the tree tops
and descended again to the earth several times over. Only in this
way does it seem possible to explain the wonderfully complex
manner in which these climbing plants wander up and down the
forest as if guided by the strangest caprices, or how they become so
crossed and tangled together in the wildest confusion.
The variety in the length, thickness, strength and toughness of
these climbers, enables the natives of tropical countries to put them
to various uses. Almost every kind of cordage is supplied by them.
Some will stand in water without rotting, and are used for cables, for
lines to which are attached fish-traps, and to bind and strengthen
the wooden anchors used generally in the East. Boats and even
large sailing vessels are built, whose planks are entirely fastened
together by this kind of cordage skilfully applied to internal ribs. For
the better kinds of houses, smooth and uniform varieties are chosen,
so that the beams and rafters can be bound together with neatness,
strength and uniformity, as is especially observable among the
indigenes of the Amazonian forests. When baskets of great strength
are required special kinds of creepers are used; and to serve almost
every purpose for which we should need a rope or a chain, the
tropical savage adopts some one of the numerous forest-ropes which
long experience has shown to have qualities best adapted for it.
Some are smooth and supple; some are tough and will bear twisting
or tying; some will last longest in salt water, others in fresh; one is
uninjured by the heat and smoke of fires, while another is bitter or
otherwise prejudicial to insect enemies.

Besides these various kinds of trees and climbers which form the
great mass of the equatorial forests and determine their general
aspect, there are a number of forms of plants which are always
more or less present, though in some parts scarce and in others in
great profusion, and which largely aid in giving a special character to
tropical as distinguished from temperate vegetation. Such are the
various groups of palms, ferns, ginger-worts, and wild plantains,
arums, orchids, and bamboos; and under these heads we shall give
a short account of the part they take in giving a distinctive aspect to
the equatorial forests.
Palms.—Although these are found throughout the tropics and a
few species even extend into the warmer parts of the temperate
regions, they are yet so much more abundant and varied within the
limits of the region we are discussing that they may be considered
as among the most characteristic forms of vegetation of the
equatorial zone. They are, however, by no means generally present,
and we may pass through miles of forest without even seeing a
palm. In other parts they abound; either forming a lower growth in
the lofty forest, or in swamps and on hill-sides sometimes rising up
above the other trees. On river-banks they are especially
conspicuous and elegant, bending gracefully over the stream, their
fine foliage waving in the breeze, and their stems often draped with
hanging creepers.
The chief feature of the palm tribe consists in the cylindrical
trunk crowned by a mass of large and somewhat rigid leaves. They
vary in height from a few feet to that of the loftiest forest-trees.
Some are stemless, consisting only of a spreading crown of large
pinnate leaves; but the great majority have a trunk slender in
proportion to its height. Some of the smaller species have stems no
thicker than a lead pencil, and four or five feet high; while the great
Mauritia of the Amazon has a trunk full two feet in diameter, and
more than 100 feet high. Some species probably reach a height of
200 feet, for Humboldt states that in South America he measured a
palm, which was 192 English feet high. The leaves of palms are
often of immense size. Those of the Manicaria saccifera of Para are
thirty feet long and four or five feet wide, and are not pinnate but
entire and very rigid. Some of the pinnate leaves are much larger,
those of the Raphia tædigera and Maximiliana regia being both
sometimes more than fifty feet long. The fan-shaped leaves of other
species are ten or twelve feet in diameter. The trunks of palms are
sometimes smooth and more or less regularly ringed, but they are
frequently armed with dense prickles which are sometimes eight
inches long. In some species, the leaves fall to the ground as they
decay leaving a clean scar, but in most cases they are persistent,
rotting slowly away, and leaving a mass of fibrous stumps attached
to the upper part of the stem. This rotting mass forms an excellent
soil for ferns, orchids, and other semi-parasitical plants, which form
an attractive feature on what would otherwise be an unsightly
object. The sheathing margins of the leaves often break up into a
fibrous material, sometimes resembling a coarse cloth, and in other
cases more like horsehair. The flowers are not individually large, but
form large spikes or racemes, and the fruits are often beautifully
scaled and hang in huge bunches which are sometimes more than a
load for a strong man. The climbing palms are very remarkable, their
tough, slender, prickly stems mounting up by means of the hooked
midribs of the leaves to the tops of the loftiest forest-trees, above
which they send up an elegant spike of foliage and flowers. The
most important are the American Desmoncus and the Eastern
Calamus, the latter being the well-known rattan or cane of which
chair-seats are made, from the Malay name “rotang.” The rattan-
palms are the largest and most remarkable of the climbing group.
They are very abundant in the drier equatorial forests, and more
than sixty species are known from the Malay Archipelago. The stems
(when cleaned from the sheathing leaves and prickles) vary in size
from the thickness of a quill to that of the wrist; and where
abundant they render the forest almost impassable. They lie about
the ground coiled and twisted and looped in the most fantastic
manner. They hang in festoons from trees and branches, they rise
suddenly through mid air up to the top of the forest, or coil loosely
over shrubs and in thickets like endless serpents. They must attain
an immense age, and apparently have almost unlimited powers of
growth, for some are said to have been found which were 600 or
even 1000 feet long, and if so, they are probably the longest of all
vegetable growths. The mode in which such great lengths and
tangled convolutions have been attained has already been explained
in the general account of woody climbers. From the immense
strength of these canes and the facility with which they can be split,
they are universally used for cordage in the countries where they
grow in preference to any other climbers, and immense quantities
are annually exported to all parts of the world.
Uses of Palm-trees and their Products.—To the natives of the
equatorial zone the uses of palms are both great and various. The
fruits of several species—more especially the cocoa-nut of the East
and the peach-nut (Guilielma speciosa) of America—furnish
abundance of wholesome food, and the whole of the trunk of the
sago-palm is converted into an edible starch—our sago. Many other
palm-fruits yield a thin pulp, too small in quantity to be directly
eaten, but which when rubbed off and mixed with a proper quantity
of water forms an exceedingly nutritious and agreeable article of
food. The most celebrated of these is the assai of the Amazon, made
from the fruit of Euterpe oleracea, and which, as a refreshing,
nourishing, and slightly stimulating beverage for a tropical country,
takes the place of our chocolate and coffee. A number of other
palms yield a similar product, and many that are not eaten by man
are greedily devoured by a variety of animals, so that the amount of
food produced by this tribe of plants is much larger than is generally
supposed.
The sap which pours out of the cut flower-stalk of several species
of palm when slightly fermented forms palm-wine or toddy, a very
agreeable drink; and when mixed with various bitter herbs or roots
which check fermentation, a fair imitation of beer is produced. If the
same fluid is at once boiled and evaporated it produces a quantity of
excellent sugar. The Arenga saccharifera, or sugar-palm of the Malay
countries, is perhaps the most productive of sugar. A single tree will
continue to pour out several quarts of sap daily for weeks together,
and where the trees are abundant this forms the chief drink and
most esteemed luxury of the natives. A Dutch chemist, Mr. De Vry,
who has studied the subject in Java, believes that great advantages
would accrue from the cultivation of this tree in place of the sugar-
cane. According to his experiments it would produce an equal
quantity of sugar of good quality with far less labour and expense,
because no manure and no cultivation would be required, and the
land will never be impoverished as it so rapidly becomes by the
growth of sugar-cane. The reason of this difference is, that the
whole produce of a cane-field is taken off the ground, the crushed
canes being burnt; and the soil thus becomes exhausted of the
various salts and minerals which form part of the woody fibre and
foliage. These must be restored by the application of manure, and
this, together with the planting, weeding, and necessary cultivation,
is very expensive. With the sugar-palm, however, nothing whatever
is taken away but the juice itself; the foliage falls on the ground and
rots, giving back to it what it had taken; and the water and sugar in
the juice being almost wholly derived from the carbonic acid and
aqueous vapour of the atmosphere, there is no impoverishment; and
a plantation of these palms may be kept up on the same ground for
an indefinite period. Another most important consideration is, that
these trees will grow on poor rocky soil and on the steep slopes of
ravines and hill-sides where any ordinary cultivation is impossible,
and a great extent of fertile land would thus be set free for other
purposes. Yet further, the labour required for such sugar plantations
as these would be of a light and intermittent kind, exactly suited to a
semi-civilized people to whom severe and long-continued labour is
never congenial. This combination of advantages appears to be so
great, that it seems possible that the sugar of the world may in the
future be produced from what would otherwise be almost waste
ground; and it is to be hoped that the experiment will soon be tried
in some of our tropical colonies, more especially as an Indian palm,
Phœnix sylvestris, also produces abundance of sugar, and might be
tried in its native country.
Other articles of food produced from palms are, cooking-oil from
the cocoa-nut and baccaba palm, salt from the fruit of a South
American palm (Leopoldinia major), while the terminal bud or
“cabbage” of many species is an excellent and nutritious vegetable;
so that palms supply bread, oil, sugar, salt, fruit, and vegetables. Oils
for various other purposes are made from several distinct palms,
while wax is secreted from the leaves of some South American
species; the resin called dragon’s-blood is the product of one of the
rattan palms; while the fruit of the Areca palm is the “betel-nut” so
universally chewed by the Malays as a gentle stimulant, and which is
their substitute for the opium of the Chinese, the tobacco of
Europeans, and the coca-leaf of South America.
For thatching, the leaves of palms are invaluable, and are
universally used wherever they are abundant; and the petioles or
leaf-stalks, often fifteen or twenty feet long, are used as rafters, or
when fastened together with pegs form doors, shutters, partitions,
or even the walls of entire houses. They are wonderfully light and
strong, being formed of a dense pith covered with a hard rind or
bark, and when split up and pegged together serve to make many
kinds of boxes, which, when covered with the broad leaves of a
species of screw-pine and painted or stained of various colours, are
very strong and serviceable as well as very ornamental. Ropes and
cables are woven from the black fibrous matter that fringes the
leaves of the sugar-palm and some other species, while fine string of
excellent quality used even for bow-strings, fishing-lines, and
hammocks, is made of fibres obtained from the unopened leaves of
some American species. The fibrous sheath at the base of the leaves
of the cocoa-nut palm is so compact and cloth-like, that it is used for
a variety of purposes, as for strainers, for wrappers, and to make
very good hats. The great woody spathes of the larger palms serve
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