310 THE REASON WHY. 



"To give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of 

 praise for the spirit of heaviness ; that they might be called Trees of righteous- 

 ness, The planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified." ISAIAH LXI. 



70 deg., proportion about equal. Thus the proportion of the flowerless vegetation 

 to the flowering increases from the equator to the poles. But the family of ferns, 

 filices, viewed singly, forms an exception to this law, decreasing as we depart 

 from equinoctial countries, being l-20th in equatorial and l-70th in mean 

 latitudes, and not found at all in the high latitudes of the new world. 



1218. In equinoctial and tropical countries, where a sufficient supply of moisture 

 combines with the influence of light and heat, vegetation appears in all its 

 magnitude and glory. Its lower orders, mosses, fungi, and confervse, are very 

 raro. The ferns are aborescent. Reeds ascend to the height of a hundred feet, 

 and rigid grasses rise to forty. The forests are composed of majestic leafy ever- 

 green trees bearing brilliant blossoms, their colours finely contrasting, scarcely any 



^ two standing together being of the samespecies. Enormous creepers climb their 

 trunks; parasitical orchidse hang in fostoons from branch to branch, and 

 augment the floral decoration with scarlet, purple, blue, rose, and golden dyes. 

 Of plants used by man for food, or as luxuries, or for medicinal purposes, 

 occurring in this region, rice, bananas, dates, cocoa, cacao, bread-fruit, cotfee, tea, 

 sugar, vanilla, Peruvian bark, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmegs, arc cither 

 characteristic of it as principally cultivated within its limits, or entirely confined 

 to them. 



1219. Rice (Oryza-sativa), the chief food of, perhaps, a third of the human 

 race, is cultivated beyond the tropics, but principally within them, only where 

 there is a plentiful supply of water. It has never been found wild; its native 

 country is unknown ; but probably southern Asia. 



1220. Bananas, or plantains (Musa sapientum et paradisiaca), are cultivated 

 in intertropical Asia, Africa, and America. The latter species occur in Syria. The 

 banana is not known in an uncultivated state. Its produce is enornv. us. 

 estimated to be on the same space of ground to that of wheat, as 133 to 1 , and to 

 Uiat of potatoes as 44 to 1. 



1221. Dates (Pfuenix dactylifera), and cocoa (Cocos nucifera), belonging to 

 the family Palmce. The palms, remarkable for the:r elegant forms and impor- 

 tance to man, contribute moie than any other trees to impress upon the vege- 

 tation of tropical and equinoctial countries its peculiar physiognomy. The 

 date palm is a native of northern Africa, and is so abundant between the 

 Barbary states and the Sahara, that the district has been named Biledul end, 

 the land of dates. As the desert is approached, the only objects that break the 

 monotony of the landscape are the date palm, and the tent of the Arab. It 

 accompanies the margin of the mighty desert in all its sinuosities from the 

 shores of the Atlantic to the confines of Persia, and is the only vegetable 

 affording subsistence to man that can grow in such an arid situation. The 

 annual produce of an individual is from 150 to 2601bs. weight of fruit. The 

 cocoa palm famishes annually about a hundred cocoa-nuts. It is spread 

 throughout the torrid zone ; but occurs most abundantly in the islands of the 

 Indian archipelago. The family of palms is supposed to contain a thousand 

 species, some of large size, forming extensive forests. 



1222. Cacao (Theobrama cacao), from the seeds of which chocolate is 

 prepared, grows wild in central America, and is also extensively cultivated in 

 Mexico, Guatamala, and on the coast of Cumana. 



1223. Bread-fruit tree (Artooarpus incisa}, a native of the South Sea Islands, 

 and Indian archipelago, grows also in Southern Asia, and has been introduce* 



