ALPINE VEGETATION. 129 
then assume an important station, and are succeeded by 
Agamee (or Cryptogamic) plants. 
The constancy with which these characters are met with 
in Alpine vegetation, where elevation and latitude admit a 
full development, induces me to consider them permanent; 
while the circumstance of their being repeated in the direction 
of the latitude, is favourable to their claim to be regarded as 
à natural state of the vegetation. A somewhat closer view 
of the individual regions, and of the sources of their perma- 
nent existence, will establish these circumstances more satis- 
factorily, and show on what basis they rest. These regions 
will stand as follows, and may be thus designated: 
D 
Region of Lowland Cultivation. 
. Region of Trees or Woods. 
Region of Shrubs. : 
Region of Grasses. 
. Region of Cryptogamic Plants. 
ore WN e 
l. Region of Lowland Cultivation.—This is not strictly an 
Alpine region, but may be conveniently regarded as such. Its 
extent of elevation is at the spot where the prevailing culti- 
vated plants of the latitude cease to be productive. It has 
been well defined by Phillipi; on Mount Etna, where it 
ceases at 3,300 feet. It is the zone of Vines of Humboldt on 
Teneriffe, extending to nearly 3,000 feet. The two zones of 
the Cactus and Euphorbia, and of European cultivation of 
Von Buch on Teneriffe, Canary, Palma, and Ferro are em- 
__ braced in it, Spix and Martius make two regions ofit in 
p Madeira; the region of tropical plants stretching to 700 feet, 
. and the region of the vine, fruit and corn, to 2,300 feet. Kuhl 
has also two regions, that of Cacti to 630 feet, and that of the 
vine to 2,030 feet. This region is of narrow extent in Nor- 
Tuy, Sweden, and Finmark ; but in the Carpathians it 
rises to 1,500 feet. Within the tropics, it is a broad and 
important region, and its limits are much influenced by local 
circumstances: this is particularly the case in the Himma- 
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