VARIETY IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



95 



Were we to direct our attention to the vegeta 

 ble, kingdom, we might contemplate a scene no 

 less variegated and astonishing than what ap 

 pears in the animal world. There have already 

 been discovered more than Jifty-six thousand 

 species of plants, specimens of all which may be 

 seen in the Museum of Natural History at 

 Paris. But we cannot reckon the actual num 

 ber of species in the earth and seas at less than 

 four or five hundred thousand. They are of all 

 sizes, from the invisible forests which are seen 

 in a piece of mouldiness, by the help of the mi 

 croscope, to the cocoas of Malabar fifty feet in 

 circumference, and the banians, whose shoots 

 cover a circumference of five acres of ground. 

 Each of them is furnished with a complicated 

 system of vessels for the circulation of its juices, 

 the secretion of its odours, and other important 

 functions somewhat analogous to those of ani 

 mals. Almost every vegetable consists of a 

 root, trunk, branches, leaves, skin, bark, pith, 

 sap-vessels, or system of arteries and veins, 

 glands for perspiration, flowers, petals, stamina, 

 farina, seed-case, seed, fruit, and various other 

 parts ; and these are different in their construc 

 tion and appearance in the different species. 

 Some plants, as the oak, are distinguished for 

 their strength and hardness ; others, as the elm 

 and fir, are tall and slender ; some are tall, like the 

 cedar of Lebanon, while others never attain to 

 any considerable height ; some have a rough and 

 uneven bark, while others are smooth and fine, as 

 the birch, the maple, and the poplar ; some are so 

 slight and delicate that the least wind may over 

 turn them, while others can resist the violence 

 of the northern blasts ; some acquire their full 

 growth in a few years, while others grow to a 

 prodigious height and size, and stand unshaken 

 amidst the lapse of centuries; some drop their 

 leaves in autumn, and remain for months like 

 blighted trunks, while others retain their verdure 

 amidst the most furious blasts of winter ; some 

 have leaves scarcely an inch in length or breadth, 

 while others, as the tallipot of Ceylon, have 

 leaves so large that one of them, it is said, will 

 shelter fifteen or twenty men from the rain. 



The variety in the vegetable kingdom in re 

 spect of flowers, is apparent even to the least 

 attentive observer. Every species is different 

 from another in the form and hues which it exhi 

 bits. The carnation differs from the rose, the 

 rose from the tulip, the tulip from the auricula, 

 the auricula from the lily, the lily from the nar 

 cissus, and the rununculus from the daisy. At 

 the same time each rununculus, daisy, rose or 

 tulip, has its own particular character and beauty, 

 something that is peculiar to itself, and in which 

 it is distinguished from its fellows. In a bed of 

 rununculuses, or tulips, for example, we shall 

 scarcely find two individuals that have precisely 

 the same aspect, or present the same assemblage 

 of colours. Some flowers are of a stately size, 



and seem to reign over their fellows in the same 

 parterre, others are lowly or creep along the 

 ground ; some exhibit the most dazzling colours, 

 others are simple and blush almost unseen : some 

 perfume the air with exquisite odours, while 

 others only please the sight with their beautiful 

 tints. Not only the forms and colours of flowers 

 but their perfumes, are different. The odour 

 of southernwood differs from that of thyme, that 

 of peppermint from balm, and that of the daisy 

 from the rose, which indicates a variety in their 

 internal structure, and in the juices that circu 

 late within them. The leaves of all vegetables, 

 like the skin of the human body, are diversified 

 with a multitude of extremely fine vessels, and 

 an astonishing number of pores. In a kind of 

 box-tree called Palma Cereres, it has been ob 

 served that there are above an hundred and se- 

 venty-two thousand pores on one single side of 

 the leaf. In short, the whole earth is covered 

 with vegetable life in such profusion and variety 

 as astonishes the contemplative mind. Not o/aly 

 the fertile plains, but the rugged mountains, the 

 hardest stones, the most barren spots, and even 

 the caverns of the ocean, are diversified with 

 plants of various kinds ; and, from the torrid to 

 the frigid zone, every soil and every climate has 

 plants and flowers peculiar to itself. To attempt 

 to estimate their number and variety would be 

 to attempt to dive into the depths of infinity. 

 Yet, every diversity in the species, every variety 

 in the form of the individuals, and even every 

 difference in the shade and combination of co 

 lour in flowers of the same species, exhibits a 

 distinct conception which must have existed in 

 the Divine Mind before the vegetable kingdom 

 was created. 



Were we to take a survey of the mineral king 

 dom, we should also behold a striking exhibition 

 of the &quot; manifold wisdom of God.&quot; It is true, 

 indeed, that we cannot penetrate into the inte 

 rior recesses of the globe, so as to ascertain the 

 substances which exist, and the processes which 

 are going on near its central regions. But, 

 within a few hundreds of fathoms of its surface, 

 we find such an astonishing diversity of mineral 

 substances as clearly shows, that its internal 

 parts have been constructed on the same plan of 

 variety as that of the animal and vegetable king 

 doms. In the classes of eacthy, saline, inflam 

 mable, and metallic fossils, under which mine 

 ralogists have ananged the substances of the 

 mineral kingdom, are contained an immense 

 number of genera and species. Under the earthy 

 class of fossils are comprehended diamonds, chry 

 solites, menilites, garnets, zeolites, corundums, 

 agates, jaspers, opals, pearl-stones, tripoli, clay 

 slate, basalt, lava, chalk, limestone, ceylanite, 

 strontian, barytes, celestine, and various other 

 substances. The saline class comprehends such 

 substances as the following, natron or natura 4 

 soda, rock salt, nitre, alum, sal-ammoniac, Ep. 



