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mations of Europe, it has none. As remarked above, however, one species is 

 described from Greenland and two from the Cretaceous formation of Moletin, 

 these of a type different from that of the Dakota-group species. 



Liriodendron, the tulip-tree, has in its characters, its distribution, and its 

 life a great degree of affinity with Magnolia. The American species is the 

 only one known now in the vegetable world, and its habitat is strictly limited 

 to this country. It does not ascend higher than the fortieth degree of lati- 

 tude, except, perhaps, casually, like Magnolia under the protection of favorable 

 local circumstances. The genus does not appear to have any disposition to 

 modifications of its type and to migrations. We have as yet scarcely any 

 fossil remains of it in our Tertiary formations. In that of Europe, it is rep- 

 resented from Greenland to Italy by one species only. The leaves of differ- 

 ent forms, described from the Dakota group as four species, may perhaps be 

 referable to a single one, as the characters, especially the size, of the leaves 

 may be local, and result from climatic circumstances. It has thus passed a 

 solitary life. Even now, by the singular and exclusive form of its pale-green 

 glossy leaves; by its large cup-shaped yellow flowers, from which it has 

 received its specific name ; by its smooth, exactly cylindrical stem, gracefully 

 bearing an oblong pyramidal head of branches, grouped with perfect sym- 

 metry, it stands widely apart from the other denizens of our forests as a 

 beautiful stranger, or rather as a memorial monument of another vegetable 

 world. Either considered in its whole or in its separate characters, the Tulip- 

 tree is a universal and constant subject of admiration and wonder. It could 

 be named, not the king, it is not strong enough for that, but the queen of our 

 forests, if the Magnolia was not there with it to dispute the prize of perfec- 

 tion by the still grander majesty of its stature, the larger size of its foliage, 

 the elegance and the perfume of its flowers. Our sense of admiration for 

 these noble trees is heightened still by the dignity of their ancient origin. 



I have referred to the family of the Menispermacece, under the generic 

 name of Menispermites, a large number of leaves related, by their form and 

 nervation, to those of the American species of Menisp>ermum, M. canadense, 

 and M. carolinum. The relation appears to me as positive as it can be estab- 

 lished from a single kind of vegetable organs, the leaves. This relation may 

 be searched for in plants of a far distant country and of a different climate, 

 and there, perhaps, found as evident with another class of vegetables. But I 

 cannot admit that we have to look to foreign types for analogy of a vegetation 



