151 



nish province, the highest point, the top of the Hochwald, be- 

 ing only 2405 Rhenish feet, all true mountain plants are want- 

 ing ; only the shade-loving wood-plants, such as Corydalis bul- 

 bosa and tuberosa, Anemone ranunculoides, Vinca minor, Den- 

 taria bulbifera, &c., decorate the ground of the higher moun- 

 tain declivities, as well as the woods of the plain. Fir woods 

 present themselves properly speaking only on the highest 

 points of the Hundesriicken, but here they cannot reach, from 

 the nature of the soil, to any great extent. The vegetation of 

 these districts is divided into an upper and lower region ; the 

 highest limit of the cultivation of the vine (about 800 feet ab- 

 solute height) is fixed as the boundary, and numerous plants 

 are enumerated \vhich as it appears do not extend beyond this. 



In examining the influence of the geognostic peculiarities 

 of the soil, M. Writgen arrives at the conclusion that a far more 

 important influence must be ascribed to the temperature, 

 moisture, and aggregate condition of the soil than to its geo- 

 gnostic character. Observations are enumerated to show how 

 differently limestone and slate, in combination with light, 

 warmth, and moisture, act on the development of the vegetation. 

 Cypripedium Calceolus was observed on the slate mountains 

 of the Rhine ! In the Eifel, on the limits of the clay slate 

 and of the limestone, spelt is cultivated on the latter and rye 

 on the first, and the farmer therefore distinguishes spelt ground 

 and rye ground ; but in the valley of the Rhine the cultivation 

 of grain is so especially favoured by the climate and outer pro- 

 perties of the soil that this distinction is not known. 



There are also some interesting communications in this 

 work on the separate distribution of some species of plants. 



M. Siegmund Graf* has communicated some similar ob- 

 servations on the relations of vegetation of the duchy of Krain, 

 and although this country also possesses no well-defined na- 

 tural boundaries, yet such special investigations of small dis- 

 tricts add more or less important facts to the great structure 

 which vegetable geography tends to erect. Krain is a very 

 uneven land, and comprises 1'735'696 Vienna yokes (of 1600 

 square fathoms) of superficies, of which nearly one-third is 



* Versuch einer gedrangten Zusammenstellung der Vegetations- Verbal t- 

 nisse des Herzogthums Krain. Laibach, 1837-8. Also contained in the 

 Linnaeafor 1837. 



