252 Observations on Humboldt's Works 



this zone a much greater proportion of species which are pe- 

 culiar to it. Lastly, only a few of the Lapland ferns appear at 

 any considerable height, and Wahlenberg remarks that even 

 these do not always resist intense cold *. 



It has often been remarked already, that by reason of the 

 present imperfect state of our knowledge, we cannot give the 

 geographical distribution of certain families. This prevails 

 chiefly in respect to cryptogamous plants, Filices excepted. 

 Notwithstanding the author admits this, p. xiii., yet he brings 

 forward in his tables the following proportions ; the number of 

 cryptogamous to the number of phanerogamous plants, in 

 the equatorial zone 1:5, in the temperate 1:2, in the frigid 

 1:1. As it appears, that in the cryptogamia we should dis- 

 tinguish between the different families ; so it is, perhaps, quite 

 evident that the mosses and lichens exist in a much greater 

 proportion in northern countries ; for, in the first place, there 

 are a great number of species peculiar to these countries, and, 

 in the second, those two families, in Dr. Wahlenberg*s Flora 

 Lapponica, make about *u of the whole vegetation, whereas 

 they comprise only a small part in the Floras of middle Europe. 

 But, in respect to the fungi, the temperate zone is more favour- 

 able to them than the frigid ; in the Flora Lapponica f they 

 make only -^-j- — y^; whereas in M. Schumacher's Enumeratio 

 Plantarum Sicellandice , they amount to nearly one half of the 

 whole Flora. And if we add, that the difficulties which oppose 

 themselves to the examination and determination of the fungi 

 especially in travelling, may have rendered the proportion too 

 small, and besides that many fungi appear to be omitted in 

 the last-named Flora ; the difference then becomes so wonderful, 

 that, at all events, the number in Lapland must be too small J. 



• " Ex jam relatis constat plerasque Filices Lapponicas e latere Nor- 

 vegico alpiura provenire locis angustis occultis meridiei expositis. Pau- 

 cissimae in ipsis alpibus observatae scrobiculos recessusque maxime abs- 

 conditos sibi eligunt, ibique brevi vigent; adeo ut neque hae repugnent 

 caeterarum naturam frigoris impatientissimam." Flora Lapponica^ p. 289. 



t Flora Lapponica. Introductio, p. Ixiii. 



X Namely, 930 out of 2,189. 



