FROM MIRBEL. 277 



times tower into the air like the Banana, of which they 

 assume the appearance ; at others lengthening them- 

 selves into supple climbers, they mount to the tops of 

 the highest trees. 



Differences as strongly marked are exemplified in 

 Orchidecz. In Europe the species are low ; their flow- 

 ers, although equally interesting to the botanist by the 

 singularity of their structure as in other regions, are 

 too insignificant to attract the attention of any who do 

 not make plants an object of their study. In the tor- 

 rid zone, the case is quite different in regard to this 

 tribe ; the greater portion of which consists of species 

 that excite our wonder by the size and brilliancy of 

 their blossom ; and many, as the Vanilla, suspend their 

 long branches covered with a foliage of shining green, 

 and terminated by magnificent garlands of flowers from 

 the summits of trees. 



The Apocynece, Boraginece, and many other tribes, 

 are equally examples of contrasts of a like nature. 

 The European nnturalist, whom the ardent thirst of 

 science leads under the Equator, views with ecstacy 

 those fertile regions, which exhibit at every step forms 

 familiar to him, decked in the rich attire bestowed from 

 the hand of a more bountiful and powerful nature. 



There are beauties in a land yet wild and savage, 

 which disappear at the approach of civilization. In 

 Europe the soil abounds only in plants which are of use 

 to man. Domestic vegetables, by the aid and protec- 

 tion of the cultivator, have so trenched upon the do- 

 main of the wilderness, that space is scarcely left for 

 the existence of those for which man has no call. The 

 primeval forests of the Gauls and Germans have disap- 

 peared. Forests at this time of day are mere formal 



plantations of large extent. They are intersected in all 



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