Picture of Vegetation on the Surface of the Globe. 257 



seem to have equally emerged from their original wildness. All 

 present the most elegant forms, and appear to reflect, t»y the vi- 

 vacity of their colours, those floods of light which the star of day 

 continually pours upon their corollas. Those beautiful countries 

 are perfumed by the most precious spices, embellish ed^by the su- 

 perb family of the liliaceae ; scarcely is there one of the plants 

 observed in Europe to be seen. There grow those vegetables 

 wJiich furnish commerce with those gums and odorous resins 

 which are imported by us at so high a price ; those medicinal 

 plants, which, for so long a time, have only been known by their 

 productions, and by unmeaning denominations. It is here that 

 we learn to what shrubs, and to what plants, are to be referred the 

 campeachy-wood, the snake- wood, the nux vomica, the cassias, 

 the myrobolans, the tamarind, the curcuma, galamba, ginger, 

 cardamom, zedoary, dragonVblood, &c. In the fields and in 

 the plains, there vegetate an immense quantity of beautiful plants, 

 some of which constitute the riches of our gardens ; the cleroden- 

 dra, jiisticia, achyranthi, cerbei'i, pontederia, eranthema, glo- 

 riosa, crotones^ acalypha, &c. 



In this general picture of vegetation, we would not forget an- 

 other corner of the world, where nature seems to delight to shew 

 her munificence, in the infinite number of species belonging to 

 the same genera, — to genera, whose types, for the most part, al- 

 ready exist in Europe ; to mingle them with other genera pecu- 

 liar to the climate, and of which some have been Remarked among 

 the plants of America. Such does the Cape of Good Hope pre- 

 sent itself to the eye of the naturalist, who visits it for the first 

 time ; he is struck with astonishment at the sight of those moun- 

 tainous rocks, covered with succulent plants, aloeSj mesemhryan- 

 thema^ stapelice^ crassulae^ tetragonict, &c. If he penetrate into 

 the forests, they are no longer those of Europe or of America ; 

 he sees them all shining with that golden and silvery lustre, dif- 

 fused over the leaves of the numerous protecB. Let him traverse 

 vast plains, he can scarcely count the numberless species of 

 heaths, borbonice, blcBricc, pencea, &c. The thickets and woods 

 are composed of a multitude of shrubs little known, of beautiful 

 phylioEi passerince, myrsinites, tarconanthi, anthosperma, roy- 

 ence, Jialleria, kc. While in the fields grow in rivalry, the nu- 

 merous gerania, ixiee. gladioli, lobelia, hamanthi, selagines, ste-^ 



JULY OCTOBER 1826. R 



