322 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS. 



bd. i. s. 262, with my Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, t. 

 ii. p. 382, and Rel. hist. t. i. p. 491.) 



( 17 ) p. 240. " The form of Malvaceae" 



Larger malvaceous forms begin to appear as soon as we have 

 crossed the Alps; at Nice and in Dalmatia, Lavatera arborea; and 

 in Liguria, Lavatera olbia. The dimensions of the Baobab, monkey- 

 bread tree, have been mentioned above (vol. ii. p. 90). To this form 

 are attached the also botanically allied families of the Byttneriaceae 

 (Sterculia, Hermannia, and the large-leaved Theobroma Cacao, in 

 which the flowers spring from the bark both of the trunk and the 

 roots) ; the Bombacese (Adansonia, Helicteres, and Cheirostemon) ; 

 and lastly the Tiliaceae (Sparmannia Africana). I may name more 

 particularly, as superb representatives of the Mallow-form, our Ca- 

 vanillesia platanifolia, of Turbaco, near Carthagena- in South Ame- 

 rica, and the celebrated Ochroma-like Hand-tree, the Macpalxochi- 

 quahuitl of the Mexicans (from macpalUj the flat hand), Arbol de 

 las Manitas of the Spaniards, our Cheirostemon platanoides ; in which 

 the long curved anthers project beyond the fine purple blossom, 

 causing it to resemble a hand or claw. Throughout the Mexican 

 States this one highly ancient tree is the only existing individual of 

 this extraordinary race : it is supposed to be a stranger, planted about 

 five centuries ago by the kings of Toluca. I found the height above 

 the sea where the Arbol de las Manitas stands to be 8280 French 

 (8824 English) feet. Why is there only a single individual, and 

 from whence did the kings of Toluca procure either the young tree 

 or the seed? It seems no less difficult to account for Montezuma 

 not having possessed it in his botanical gardens of Huaxtepec, Cha- 

 poltepec, and Iztapalapan, of which Hernandez, the surgeon of Philip 

 II., was still able to avail himself, and of which some traces remain 

 even to the present day; and it seems strange that it should not 

 have found a place among the representations of objects of natural 

 history which Nezahualcoyotl, king of Tezcuco, caused to be drawn 

 half a century before the arrival of the Spaniards. It is asserted 

 that the Hand-tree exists in a wild state in the forests of Guatemala. 

 (Huinboldt and Bonpland, Plantes e*quinoxiales, t. i. p. 82, pi. 24; 

 Essai polit. sur la Nouv. Esp., t. i. p. 98.) At the Equator, we have 



