328 VIEWS, &C. PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



According to the excellent observations of Leopold von Buch, 

 and the more recent ones of Martins, who also visited Spits- 

 bergen, the limits of the geographical distribution in the high 

 Scandinavian north (in Lapland) are as follows : " The Fir 

 extends to 70°; the White Birch {Betula alba) to 70° 40'; the 

 Dwarf- Birch (B. na?ia) to 71° at least: Pinus cembra is 

 entirely wanting in Lapland."* 



As the length and the position of the acicular leaves 

 define the physiognomic character of the conifers , this is 

 still more designated by the specific difference of the leaf- 

 breadth, and the parenchymatous development of the appen- 

 dicular organs. Several species of Ephedra may be said to 

 be almost leafless; but in Taxus, Araucaria, Dammara, 

 (Agathis), and the Salisburia adiantifolia of Smith (Gingiva 

 biloba, Linn.), the breadth of the leaf gradually increases. I 

 have here arranged the genera morphologically. Even the 

 names of the species, as first chosen by botanists, indicate 

 such an arrangement. Dammara orientalis of Borneo and 

 Java, often 1 1 feet in diameter, was at first named loranthi- 

 folia: Dammara australis (Lamb.), in New Zealand, rising 

 to 150 feet high, was originally named zamsefolia. Neither 

 of these has acicular leaves, but "folia altema oblongo 

 lanceolata, opposita, in arbore adultiori saepe alterna, enervia, 

 striata." The lower surface of the leaf is densely covered 

 with stomata. These transitions of the appendicular system, 

 from the greatest contraction to a broad leaf surface, possess, 

 like every advance from simple to compound, both a morpho- 

 logical and a physiognomical interest. f The short-stalked, 

 broad, split leaf of the Salisburia (Kampfer's Ginkgo), has 

 also the breathing pores (stomata) only on the inferior side. 

 The original habitat of the tree is not known. It became 

 distributed from the Chinese temples to the gardens of Japan, 

 in consequence of the intercourse that existed in olden times 

 between the congregations of Buddha. 



I was a witness of the singularly painful impression, which 

 the first sight of a pine-forest at Chilpanzingo made on one 



* Compare linger, TJeber den Einfixiss des Bodens auf die Verthei- 

 lung der Gewdchse, s. 200; Lindblom, Adnot. in geographicam plan- 

 tarum intra Sueciam distributionem, p. 89; Martius, in the Annates 

 des Sciences naturelles, t. xviii. 1842, p. 195. 



f Link, Urwelt, Th. i. 1834, s. 201-211. 



