PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 239 



by the concurrent voice of nations in all ages; for the earliest civili- 

 zation of mankind belonged to countries bordering on the region of 

 palms, and to parts of Asia where they abound. Their lofty, slender, 

 ringed, and, in some cases, prickly stems, terminate in aspiring and 

 shining either fanlike or pinnated foliage. The leaves are frequently 

 curled, like those of some graminege. Smooth polished stems of 

 palms carefully measured by me had attained 192 English feet in 

 height. In receding from the Equator and approaching the temper- 

 ate zone, palms diminish in height and beauty. The indigenous 

 vegetation of Europe only comprises a single representative of this 

 form of plants, the sea-coast Dwarf-palm or Chamaerops, which, in 

 Spain and Italy, extends as far north as the 44th parallel of lati- 

 tude. The true climate of palms has a mean annual temperature of 

 20.5 22 Keaumur (78.2 81.5 Fahr). The Date, which is 

 much inferior in beauty to several other genera, has been brought 

 from Africa to the south of Europe, where it lives, but can scarcely 

 be said to flourish, in a mean temperature not exceeding 12 13. 5 

 Reaumur (59 62. 4 Fahr). Stems of palms and fossil bones of 

 elephants are found buried beneath the surface of the earth in north- 

 ern countries, in positions which make it appear probable that their 

 presence is not to be accounted for by their having been drifted 

 thither from the tropics, and we are led to infer that, in the course 

 of the great revolutions which our planet has undergone, great 

 changes of climate, and of the physiognomy of nature as dependent 

 on climate, have taken place. 



In all parts of the globe the palm form is accompanied by that of 

 Plantains or Bananas ; the Scitaminese and Musacese of botanists, 

 Heliconia, Amomum, and Strelitzia. In this form, the stems, 

 which are low, succulent, and almost herbaceous, are surmounted 

 by long, silky, delicately-veined leaves of a thin loose texture, and 

 bright and beautiful verdure. Groves of plantains and bananas 

 form the ornament of moist places in the equatorial regions. It is 

 on their fruits that the subsistence of a large part of the inhabitants 

 of the torrid zone chiefly depends, and, like the farinaceous cereals of 

 the North, they have followed man from the infancy of his civiliza- 

 tion. ( 16 ) The aboriginal site of this nutritious plant is placed by 

 some Asiatic fables or traditions on the banks of the Euphrates, and 



