322 VIEWS, &C PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



pical South America, that lie north of the equator ; they are 

 equally unknown on the elevated plains of New Granada, 

 Pasto, and Quito. I have advanced in the plains and on the 

 mountains from the Rio Sinu, near the isthmus of Panama, as 

 far as 1 2° south lat. ; and in this territorial extent, of nearly 

 1600 miles in length, the only forms of needle-leaved trees 

 that I saw, were the taxoid Podocarpus (P. taxifolia), 64 feet 

 high, in the Andes pass of Quindiu and in the Paramo de 

 Saraguru, in 4° 26' north and 3° 40' south latitude, and an 

 Ephedra (E. americana) near Guallabamba, north of Quito. 



Among the group of the Coniferse, the following are common 

 to the northern and southern hemispheres: Taxus, Gnetum, 

 Ephedra, and Podocarpus. Long before l'Heritier, the last 

 genus had been very properly distinguished from Pinus by Co- 

 lumbus on the 25th of November, 1492. He says, " Pinales 

 en la Serrania de Haiti que no llevan piilas, pero frutos que 

 parecen azeytunos del Axarafe de SeviUa."* Species of yew 

 extend from the Cape of Good Hope to 61° north lat. in 

 Scandinavia, consequently through niore than 95 degrees of 

 latitude. Podocarpus and Ephedra are almost as widely 

 distributed ; and even from among the Cupuliferse, the 

 species of the oak genus, usually termed by us a northern 

 form, though they do not cross the equator in South America, 

 reappear in the southern hemisphere, at Java, in the Indian 

 archipelago. To this latter hemisphere ten genera of the 

 cone-bearing trees exclusively appertain, of which we will 

 here cite only the most important: Araucaria, Dammara 

 (Agathis, Sal.), Frenela (comprising about 18 Australian 

 species), Dacrydium and Lybocedrus, whose habitat is both 

 in New Zealand and the Straits of Magellan. New Zealand 

 possesses one species of the genus Dammara (D. australis), 

 but no Araucaria. The contrary, by a singular contrast, is 

 the case in New Holland. 



In the form of acicular-leaved trees, Nature presents us 

 with the greatest length of stem existing in arborescent 

 productions. I use the term arborescent, for, as we have 

 already remarked, among the Laminaria3 (the oceanic algae) 

 Macrocystis pyrifera, between the coast of California and 68° 

 south lat., often attains a length of more than 400 feet. If 

 we exclude the six Araucarias of Brazil, Chili, New Holland, 

 * See my Examen crit. t. hi. p. 24. 



