334 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



Far above the region of Alpine plants, grasses, and lichens, and 

 even above the limit of perpetual snow, the botanist sees with as- 

 tonishment, both in the temperate and tropical zones, isolated 

 phaenogamous plants occur now and then sporadically on rocks 

 which remain free from the general surrounding snowy covering, 

 and which may possibly be warmed by heat ascending through open 

 fissures. I have already spoken of the Saxifraga boussingaulti, 

 which is found on the Chimborazo at an elevation of 14,800 (15,773 

 E.) feet; in the Swiss Alps, Silene acaulis has been seen at a height 

 of 10,680 (11,380 E.) feet, being in the first-named case 600 (640 

 E.) feet, and in the second 2460 (2620 E.) feet above the limit of 

 the snows, that limit being taken as it was in the two cases respect- 

 ively at the time when the plants were found. 



In our European Coniferae, the Red and White Pine show great 

 and remarkable differences in respect to their distribution. While 

 in the Swiss Alps the Red Pine (Pinus picea, Du Roi, foliis com- 

 presso tetragonis; unfortunately called by Linnaeus, and by most 

 of the botanists of the present day, Pinus abies!) forms the upper 

 limit of arborescent vegetation at a mean height of 5520 (5883 

 English) feet, only an occasional low-growing mountain-alder (Alnus 

 viridis, Dec., Betula viridis, Vill.) advancing now and then still nearer 

 to the snow-line; the White Pine (Pinus abies, Du Roi, Pinus picea, 

 Linn., foliis planis, pectinato-distichis, emarginatis) ceases, according 

 to Wahlenberg, more than a thousand feet lower down. The Red 

 Pine does not appear at all in the South of Europe, in Spain, the 

 Apennines, and Greece; even on the northern slope of the Pyre- 

 nees it is seen only, as Ramond remarks, at great elevations, and is 

 entirely wanting in the Caucasus. The Red Pine advances in Scan- 

 dinavia farther to the north than the White Pine, of which last- 

 named tree there is in Greece (on Mounts Parnassus, Taygetus, and 

 (Eta) a long, needled variety (foliis apice integris, breviter mucrona- 

 tis), the Abies Apollinis of Link. (Linnaea, bd. xv. 1841, s. 529; 

 and Endlicher, Synopsis Coniferarum, p. 96.) 



On the Himalaya, the Coniferae are distinguished by the great 

 thickness and height of their trunks, and by the length of their 

 leaves. The Deodwara Cedar, Pinus deodara (Roxb.) (properly, 

 in Sanscrit, dewa-d^ru, timber of the Gods) which is from 12 to 



