19 



THE PINE. 



AMONG the many fine tribes of plants which constitute the Vegetable 

 Kingdom, not one presents aspects of greater grandeur than the family 

 named after the Pine-tree. No trees attain greater stature than these. 

 In very few instances do we find an equal longevity, or a corresponding 

 massiveness of trunk ; and although the number of different species is 

 comparatively small, no trees form forests of such immense extent, or 

 of composition so exclusive. Linnaeus gave to the palm-trees of the 

 tropics the happy name of the "princes of vegetable nature" : he might, 

 with still greater propriety, have termed the palms the vegetable princes 

 of hot countries ; the pines and firs and their allies, the princes of cold 

 ones. For while exogenous or branching trees are diffused over the 

 whole world, and are found under every possible variety of climate 

 except the extreme frigid, where no life can endure, palm-trees, on the 

 one hand, are restricted within certain parallels of latitude, decreasing 

 the further we depart from the equinoctial ; and pine and fir trees, on 

 the other hand, belong emphatically to cold and temperate countries. 

 Not that either of these great races is without example where the other 

 prevails. Far from it. There are palms even in the south of Europe, 

 where they form a striking and attractive novelty to the English visitor, 

 especially to any one seeking those portions of the Mediterranean coast 

 of France which are the winter resort of invalids ; and another kind, 

 indigenous to the cooler parts of China, appears to be hardy enough to 

 bear English Christmas weather without protection, being already an 

 ornament of many a lawn containing select collections . of plants. 

 Similarly, there are trees of the pine and fir kind in the tropics ; but it 

 is generally at a considerable elevation above the level of the sea, or 

 where the mountain- side provides a habitat and temperature not unlike 

 that of the lowlands of the temperate zones. 



One of the most remarkable facts in botanical geography is the 

 concordance between the vegetable productions of the plains in given 

 latitudes, whether north of the equator or south of it, and those of the 

 mountain- sides in latitudes not so far removed. To ascend a mountain 

 in the tropical and sub-tropical zones, is like setting out from the foot 



