No. 2.] MATTHEW — IMPRESSIONS OF CUBA. 85 



In the same category must be placed the four great arboreal 

 groups which form the bulk of our forest growth ; namely, the 

 Ace7^acece (Maples), Cupulifercc (Oaks, Butternuts, Beeches, &c.), 

 Amentacece (Birches, Alders, Willows, Poplars, &c.), and the 

 Conifene (Pines, Spruces, Firs, Larch, &c.) The last do not 

 seem to have found a foot-hold even on the mountain tops, which, 

 as already observed, exhibit in the dry season a uniform growth 

 of trees, which, judging from their brown color, are quite divested 

 of leaves, and have nothing in common with our evergreen forests. 



As is the case with a number of orders already mentioned, so 

 also the tropical grasses include some large and even gigantic 

 forms ; as for example Plyra and Bamhusa. In the ferns, toO;^ 

 among the flowerless plants, there is the Golden Fork-fern 

 (Ao'ostichum), growing to a height of nine or ten feet. The 

 genus Adiantnm (Maiden-hair), also includes some beautiful 

 species with delicate leaves and hair-like stemlets. 



But the greatest charm of a southern landscape, and that 

 which marks it distinctively from views in northern lands, is the 

 presence of the Palms (^PaJmacece) . Nothing can be more attrac- 

 tive to the eye than the airy elegance of the Royal Palm, whether 

 it be a few solitary individuals whose star-like clusters of green 

 fronds stand out against the deep blue tropical sky, or the groves 

 one meets with in rich swales and sheltered hollows. In these 

 groves may be seen long vistas of straight round columns, very 

 smooth, almost as hard as stone, and nearly as white as marble, 

 loosing their tall shafts in a dense, feathery, waving canopy of 

 foliage, high over head. 



Possibly it was from such an ideal as these groves offered to 

 his fancy, that the Greek drew his conceptions of architectural 

 beauty; even as the Goth in later ages embodied the recollections 

 of sylvan majesty which the sombre woods of Northern Europe, 

 with their great rude trunks and lofty over-arching branches, 

 left upon his memory, in the grand ecclesiastical buildings of 

 mediaeval times. 



