CHAP. 111. © CONTINENT OF EUROPE. 135 
Arbres de ? Amérique, 30; but, according to the Botanicon Gallicum, they are 34, 
If we add to the indigenous woody plants of France those which are culti- 
vated or doubtful, the total ligneous flora of that country will be above 580. 
If to this number we add the 528 trees and shrubs of North America (see 
p- 126.), all of which will grow in France, it will give a total ligneous flora to 
that country of above 1100 species; which, considering that France possesses 
in her botanic gardens or nurseries all, or nearly all, the trees cultivated in the 
open air in Britain, is probably as near the truth as the present state of our 
catalogues will admit of our arriving at. In the above enumeration of the 
woody plants of France, we have, as in the case of the enumeration of the 
woody plants of the British Islands (p.27.), included all the under-shrubs, 
and also all those reputed species which we believe to be mere varieties. We 
have included the under-shrubs, because it is difficult to draw a line of sepa- 
ration between those which might practically be considered as herbaceous 
plants, though botanically they are suffruticose; and because, in a state of 
culture, some of these suffruticose plants attain such ample dimensions, 
and such a ligneous texture, as to assume quite a shrubby character ; for ex- 
ample, Euphérbia Characias in Britain (p. 29.), and Zbéris saxatilis in France 
(p. 132.). The first is seldom above 2 ft. high, in its native habitat in woods; 
and the second is seldom above 6 in. high, on rocks and in gravelly soil: but 
in dry deep garden ground the euphorbia will, in the course of a few years, 
form a bush between 3 ft. and 4 ft. high; and the iberis a mass above half 
that height. We have inserted the names of what we consider only varieties, 
because we have no doubt that, in most cases, they are plants tolerably dis- 
tinct ; because it is impossible to be quite certain of what are species and what 
varieties, without comparing them in different stages of their growth, and 
grown in the same soil, situation, and climate; and because we do not wish 
to set up our own opinion in this matter as absolute. 
In an article by Professor Thouin, published in the Mémoires d Agriculture 
for the year 1786, it is stated that France then possessed about 84 different 
species of trees, of which 24 were of the first rank in point of size, or ex- 
ceeding 100 ft. in height ; 16 of the second rank, or exceeding 60 ft. in height; 
and the remainder of the third rank, or exceeding 30 ft. in height. The names 
of these trees, and their arrangement according to the heights they attain, will 
be found in the work last quoted, and also in the Nouveau Cours Complet 
@ Agriculture, edit. 1821, art. Arbre. Deleuze states that France contains 
about 250 species of trees, of which more than-three fourths are of foreign 
origin. (Annales du Muséum, tom. iil. p. 191.) ; 
Ample as is the ligneous flora of France, it might be doubled by adding to 
it the trees and shrubs of Australia, of the mountainous regions of Asia, and 
of Mexico, Chili, and Peru. We do not speak of the whole of the trees and 
shrubs of these countries, because the whole are not yet known, but only of 
those that have been already introduced into Britain, and are treated by us as 
green-house plants; all of which would succeed in the open air of the southern 
provinces of France. Were the total number of ligneous species from these 
countries introduced, the number of trees and shrubs now in France would, 
in all probability, be quadrupled. 
But though the ligneous flora of France is so much more extensive than 
that of Britain, yet it is far from being so equally spread over the country. 
Paris is considerably to the south of London, and yet there are above fifty 
species of evergreen trees and shrubs which are to be found in the open air 
in the environs of the latter city, which are not to be found in those of the 
former. We assert this from a comparison between a list of the trees and 
shrubs now (1835) growing in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, furnished to 
us by Professor Mirbel, and the list which we have seen in MS. of the trees 
and shrubs now in the garden of the Horticultural Society of London. No 
part of France is so far north as Edinburgh; yet, while the cedar of Lebanon 
attains a large size far to the north of that city, and even in the Highlands 
of Scotland, it is killed during severe winters at Strasburg and throughout 
M 
