74- DU. V. MARTI us 



the epiphytes ceasing to exist. The individuals of this colossal 

 growth must ever be excluded from our plant-houses, however 

 lofty. Other forests, less vast in their dimensions, especially 

 their height, prevail in tropical countries ; and they supply our 

 large houses, and even the smaller, with inmates. In these 

 forests there are not the gradations mentioned above ; shrubs, and 

 even herbaceous plants, mix with the constituent trees, and the 

 ground is densely covered with grass. The moisture in these 

 forests varies much, according to their localities ; and therefore 

 the periods of vegetation vary with them. Trees, both solitary, 

 and whole forests of them, which were naked in the plateau of the 

 Minas during the dry months, I found in leaf, and even in flower, 

 near perennial springs or near rivers. 



The author applies the foregoing remarks to show how import- 

 ant it is to separate plants so different in their growth and seasons 

 in our various glass-houses, and how little attention is generally 

 paid to this subject. Subtropical trees and others, produced still 

 further south and north of the tropics, are less difficultly treated 

 because the less vertical light which they are accustomed to 

 approaches more to that in our latitudes in its intensity and 

 effect. 



Another grand division is the ground-vegetation, consisting 

 both within the tropics and beyond these of grasses, Cyperaceae, 

 Restiacete, and a vast number of herbaceous plants, also of those 

 low plants, which form hedges, thickets, and the like. Of 

 such consists that class of vegetation in the prairies of North 

 America, the llanos of Venezuela and Caracas, the campos of 

 Brazil, the pampas of Buenos Eyres, Cordova, Tucuman, and 

 Salta, and the jungles of the East Indies; the Karroo plains of the 

 Cape of Good Hope, the steppes of Persia, southern Russia, 

 and many eastern countries ; finally New Holland, New Zealand, 

 and Van Diemen's Land. The number of their genera is immense ; 

 the collection of their seeds, tubers, bulbs, &e., far easier than is 

 the case as regards the fruits and seeds of the forest vegetation ; 

 their introduction into our houses consequently disproportionally 

 greater. This is apparent, particularly, in English and Belgian 

 garden publications ; and the case would be still more striking, if 

 the predilection for Orchidese, Bronieliaceae, and Scitaminese had 

 not so extensively predominated for these ten or fifteen years.* 



* Note by Dr. Wallich. I wish that the predilection which the author 

 claims for the Scitamineous culture were ([uite correct ! When I left 

 England, upwards of twenty years ago, there was indeed some fondness 



