150 



From these statements it will easily be perceived, that the 

 Rhenish province, where at present more than one-half of the 

 surface consists in a carefully cultivated soil, where only one- 

 third is now covered with light woods, and only one-eleventh 

 of the lands lies waste, that such a land must have' worn some 

 centuries back quite a different appearance to that of the pre- 

 sent day, and consequently that the character of the vegetation 

 must have changed essentially from the thinning of the woods 

 and the draining of marshes. 



In the consideration of the vegetation of the Rhenish pro- 

 vince in a statistical point of view the author gives a table 

 of the number and of the arithmetical proportions of the wild 

 plants, from which I have selected some statements respecting 

 the chief families. The number of Phanerogamia amounts to 

 1480; the Dicotyledons are to the whole number as 1 : 1'29, 

 the Ranunculacea = 1 : 30'8, the Papaveracets and Polygaleae 

 = 1 : 296, the Crucifera = 1 : 18'5, the Rosaces = 1 : 30'8, the 

 Leguminosa = 1 : 18- 7, the Umbelliferce = 1 : 24'3, the Com- 

 positce = 1 : 10, the Cichorinae being as 1 : 28. The Labiates 

 \ : 21'l,the Scrophularina = 1 : 26*8. The Monocotyledons 

 = 1 : 4'1, the Gramme = 1 : 12*9, and the Cyperacea = 

 1:18. To all these statements are added comparisons with the 

 proportional numbers of the same families in adjacent coun- 

 tries. Besides which there is a table of the duration of life of 

 the Rhenish plants; the 1480 Phanerogamia may be divided 

 accordingly into 30? annuals, 11? biennials, 913 perennials, 

 and 143 woody plants, &c. 



In the third chapter the physiognomy of the vegetation of 

 the Rhenish province is characterized : the woods there are 

 almost entirely formed of deciduous trees, as the red beech, 

 the oak, and the birch, while the white beech, the elm, the oak, 

 the Norway maple and others generally occur only isolated. 

 Among the shrubs may be named the hazel, the alder, chiefly 

 Alnus glutinosa, the common dog-wood, the common maple 

 (Acer campestre). The rocks of the valley of the Moselle pre- 

 sent a peculiar appearance from the immense number of box 

 (Buxus sempervirens), which clothes the declivities with its 

 dark brownish-green, and imparts to this district a foreign cha- 

 racter. The arboreal vegetation was most powerful on ba- 

 saltic soil. From the slight elevations that occur in the Rhe- 



