246 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



inhabitants of the torrid zone surrounded by palms, bananas, and 

 the other beautiful forms proper to those latitudes to behold also 

 those vegetable forms which, demanding a cooler temperature, would 

 seem to belong to other zones. Elevation above the level of the sea 

 gives this cooler temperature even in the hottest parts of the earth ; 

 and Cypresses, Pines, Oaks, Berberries, and Alders (nearly allied to 

 our own) cover the mountainous districts and elevated plains of 

 Southern Mexico and the chain of the Andes at the Equator. Thus 

 it is given to man in those regions to behold without quitting his 

 native land all the forms of vegetation dispersed over the globe, and 

 all the shining worlds which stud the heavenly vault from pole to 

 pole. ( 3 ?) 



These and many other of the enjoyments which Nature affords 

 are wanting to the nations of the North. Many constellations, and 

 many vegetable forms and of the latter, those which are most beau- 

 tiful (palms, tree ferns, plantains, arborescent grasses, and the finely 

 divided, feathery foliage of the Mimosas) remain for ever unknown 

 to them. Individual plants languishing in our hot-houses can give 

 but a very faint idea of the majestic vegetation of the tropical zone. 

 But the high cultivation of our languages, the glowing fancy of the 

 poet, and the imitative art of the painter, open to us sources whence 

 flow abundant compensations, and from whence our imagination can 

 derive the living image of that more vigorous nature which other 

 climes display. In the frigid North, in the midst of the barren 

 heath, the solitary student can appropriate mentally all that has 

 been discovered in the most distant regions, and can create within 

 himself a world free and imperishable as the spirit by which it is 

 conceived. 



