J06 



DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS. 



digenous rose-tree has been discovered in South Ame- 

 rica ; nor, as yet, in the southern hemisphere. The 

 heath, too, is wanting, that beautiful genus, which 

 often spreads like a purple light upon the moun- 

 tains, and over the commons of this country ; and 

 as the heath is unknown in the New World, so is 

 the mimosa, as a wild plant, throughout Europe. 

 Its delicate and airy foliage is never seen to wave 

 even in sunny Italy, unless fostered by art : and 

 among the mysteries of nature, which set all human 

 conjecture at defiance, is the extraordinary fact that 

 mimosas grow best in North America, where also a 

 greater variety and luxuriance of vegetation is ob- 

 servable than in the most temperate parts of 

 Europe, notwithstanding a greater severity of cli- 

 mate. Species of the pine and elm, the beech and 

 oak, are found in America, but they differ from the 

 Asiatic and European species. The lofty mountains 

 of the New World are adorned with plantains and 

 valerians, with ranunculuses, arenarias, and medlars, 

 and with trees and shrubs to which travellers have 

 given European names, in consequence of an obvious 

 similarity ; but they are all specifically different. 



Returning, now, to the subject of animals, we 

 proceed to speak of the Marsupiata, or pouched 

 animals, a distinct class in the arrangement of Baron 

 Cuvier's Animal Kingdom, supposed till lately to 

 be restricted to the continent of America, though 

 now presumed to inhabit several other portions 

 of the globe. Concerning them, we may briefly 

 notice, that the American Didelphes are nocturnal, 

 that they live in trees, and subsist on insects, 

 birds, and fruit; that the Dasyuri inhabit New 



