280 ESSAYS. 
gigantic trees which have made it famous, and its Pines and 
Firs which are hardly less wonderful, and which in Oregon 
and British Columbia, descending into the plains, yield far 
more timber to the acre than can be found anywhere else, —I 
have myself discoursed upon the subject so largely on former 
occasions, that I may cut short all discourse upon the Pacifie- 
coast flora and the questions it brings up. 
I note only these points. Although this flora is richer than 
that of the Atlantic in Coniferw (having almost twice as many 
species), richer indeed than any other except that of eastern 
Asia, it is very meagre in deciduous trees. It has a fair num- 
ber of Oaks, indeed, and it has a Flowering Dogwood, even 
more showy than that which brightens our eastern woodlands 
in spring. But, altogether it possesses only one-quarter of the 
number of species of deciduous trees that the Atlantic forest 
has; it is even much poorer than Europe in this respect. It 
is destitute not only of the characteristic trees of the Atlantic 
side, such as Liriodendron, Magnolia, Asimina, Nyssa, Catalpa, 
Sassafras, Carya, and the arboreous Leguminosce (Cercis ex- 
cepted), but it also wants most of the genera which are com- 
mon throughout all the other northern-temperate floras, having 
no Lindens, Elms, Mulberries, Celtis, Beech, Chestnut, Horn- 
beam, and few and small Ashes and Maples. The shrubbery 
and herbaceous vegetation, although rich and varied, is largely 
peculiar, especially at the south. At the north we find.a fair 
number of species identical with the eastern; but it is interest- 
ing to remark that this region, interposed between the north- 
east Asiatic and the north-east American and with coast ap- 
proximate to the former, has few of those peculiar genera 
which, as I have insisted, witness to a most remarkable con- 
nection between two floras so widely sundered geographically. 
Some of these types, indeed, occur in the intermediate region, 
rendering the general absence the more noteworthy. And 
certain peculiar types are represented in single identical 
species on the coasts of Oregon and Japan, ete., (such as 
Lysichiton, Fatsia, Glehnia) ; yet there is less community 
between these floras than might be expected from their 
geographical proximity at the north. Of course the high- 
northern flora is not here in view. 
