30 THE PRESENT. 



climate ; and thus we can judge of the climate of a newly- 

 discovered country, as well as of the conditions that pre- 

 vailed and affected plant-life during the deposition of a 

 rock- formation, which took place thousands of ages ago. 

 Still further, and apparently altogether independent of 

 climate : certain families are restricted to certain regions, 

 beyond which, and under the present arrangements of sea 

 and land, they naturally never pass ; and thus it is that 

 the Cape of Good Hope rejoices in its pelargoniums and 

 geraniums ; China in its teas and camelias ; Australia in 

 its eucalypti and casuarina3 ; the Spanish peninsula in its 

 ever -green oaks; and the pampas of South America in 

 their gigantic thistles and clover, to the almost total exclu- 

 sion of other species. Descending from family regions to 

 the narrower provinces of genera and species, we find some 

 limited to a single valley, to a solitary island, or, it may be, 

 to some particular mountain-slope which, as far as science 

 can perceive, enjoys no external influence that is not equally 

 shared by the other slopes that surround it. 



Beyond all these distinctions there is the difference of 

 KIND a difference for which science can assign no reason, 

 save that it has pleased the Creator so to create them. 

 Why, for instance, does the moss differ from the rush, the 

 rush from the reed, the reed from the willow, the willow 

 from the birch, the birch from the pine, or the pine from 

 the palm 1 The oak and the ash grow side by side in the 

 same forest, and yet they are, in the language of naturalists, 

 specifically and generically distinct ; the daisy and wild 

 clover spring from the same soil, and interweave their root- 

 lets to form the same turf, and yet they have no feature or 

 quality in common. That these are facts, the eye of the 

 passing observer may readily perceive ; the reason why, 

 man may never know. It is of little avail to talk of the 

 plasticity of the vegetable organism under the force of 



