260 ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF TREE-S. 



almost numberless trees of foreign climes, a still greater variety 

 of forms and characters must appear, sufficient to affect the 

 general features of the locality, and distinguish one district from 

 another. This is in fact the case, and without entering in detail 

 upon the sixteen peculiar features described by Humboldt, it 

 may be sufficient to observe that the palms, bananas, and tree ferns, 

 peculiarly distinguish tropical countries; the /teai/i5, of which 

 300 species are known, are mostly confined to South Africa and 

 the old world, none being found in America or Australia; the 

 aloes, from their magnitude and the imposing aspect of their 

 pyramids of flowers, give a singular feature to the parched plains 

 of Africa; while North America, profuse in her flowering forest- 

 trees, presents in her magnificent magnolias and liriodendrons 

 objects of beauty unknown to European latitudes. Again the 

 plains of Australia are distinguished by the dull and sickly 

 evergreen eucalypti, often attaining the height of 150 feet; the 

 " myrtle groves and orange bowers" breathe perfumes around the 

 countries of the Mediterranean ; while the stately cedar and the 

 lofty pine ascend the heights of the most precipitous mountains, 

 and towering even amid the snows, give an expressive feature to 

 the Alpine scenery. Were we at once wafted over half the 

 rotund earth to that immense banian-tree mentioned by Forbes, 

 whose principal trunks amount to 350, while the smaller de- 

 pendent stems exceed 3000, we should at once recognize Hin- 

 doostaun, and behold in imagination the gymnosophisls men- 

 tioned by Arrian, and see in reality the Brahmin dressed in his 

 long white tunic, spending his solitary hours beneath the sacred 

 tree, himself held sacred for its sake, and supplied with the 

 comforts of life in return for his prayers and benedictions. 



Trees, even in the arboretum, should endeavour to awaken our 

 sympathies, and this they will do, if a judicious attention be paid 

 to the circumstances under which they grew in their native clime. 

 A cypress that would be dissightly and neglected on a common, 

 is classical and impressive beside an inscribed nrn in the pleasure 

 ground. Poetical association is indeed less indebted to the eye 

 than the mind; for though the eye awakens the association, the 

 train of thought was already there — it had slumbered from 

 earliest infancy, and needed but a single note to awaken up. 

 Old trees, " bald with antiquity," lightning-scathed trunks, or 

 moss-grown seniors propped up and only saved from destruction 

 by a mantle of supporting ivy, are fine materials for the pic- 

 turesque, contrasted with young vigorous plantations* and impart 

 great interest to a woodland view, especially should some old 

 stag be resting beside their battered trunks. Memory, fancy, 

 and poetical association here all conspire to charm and affect the 

 mind. The trees beneath which we have played in infancy, the 

 huge old roots where we have perhaps sat a thousand times, 

 while the laugh, and the tale, and the game progressed merrily ; — 

 the grove, or the avenue along which we paced when receiving 



