24 Mr. Brom'n, on the Proieacece of Jussieu. 



the African species ; and my friend Mr. Ferdinand Bauer has 

 observed a similar tendency in Protea mellifera. 



Among the New Holland species, Banksia speciosa is the sole 

 instance, and even that only in certain circumstances, of this 

 manner of growth. 



The favourite station of Proteaceae is in dry stony exposed 

 places, especially near the shores, where they occur also, though 

 more rarely, in loose sand. Scarcely any of them require shelter, 

 and none a good soil. A few are found in wet hogs, or even in 

 shallow pools of fresh water ; and one, the Embothrium ferrugi- 

 neiim of Cavanilles, grows, according to him, in salt marshes. 



Respecting the height to which plants of this order ascend, a 

 few facts are already known. The authors of the Flora Peruviana 

 mention, in general terms, several species as being alpine ; and 

 Humboldt, in his valuable Chart of Equinoctial Botany, has 

 given the mean height of Embothrium emarginatum about 9300 

 feet, assigning it a range of only 300 feet. On the summits of 

 the mountains of Van Diemen's Island, in about 43" south lati- 

 tude, at the computed height of about 4000 feet, I have found 

 species of Embothrium, as well as other genera hitherto observed 

 in no other situation. Etnbothrium, however, as it is the most 

 southern genus of any extent, so it is also, as might have been 

 presumed, the most alpine of the family. 



Two genera only of this order are found in more than one 

 continent: Rhopala, the most northern genus, which, though 

 chiefly occurring in America, is to be met with also in Cochirt- 

 china and in the Malay Archipelago; and Embothrium, the 

 most southern genus of any extent, is common to New Holland 

 and America. 



From 



