336 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



(Lamb.) ; his P. cembra (the G-erman and Siberian pine with eatable 

 seeds) is P. parviflora (Sieb.) ; his common Larch (P. larix) is P. 

 leptolepis (Sieb.); and his supposed Taxus baccata, the fruits of 

 which are eaten by Japanese courtiers in case of long-protracted court 

 ceremonials (Thunberg, Flora Japonica, p. 275), constitutes a dis- 

 tinct genus, and is the Cephalotaxus drupacea of Siebold. The 

 Islands of Japan, notwithstanding the vicinity of the Continent of 

 Asia, have a very distinct character of vegetation. Thunberg's sup- 

 posed Japanese Weymouth Pine (Pinus Strobus), which would offer 

 an important phenomenon, is only a planted tree, and is besides quite 

 distinct from the American species of Pine. It is Pinus korajensis 

 (Sieb.), and has been brought to Nipon from the peninsula of Corea, 

 and from Kamtschatka. 



Of the 114 species of the Genus Pinus with which we are at pre- 

 sent acquainted, not one belongs to the Southern Hemisphere, for 

 the Pinus merkusii described by Junghuhn and De Vriese belongs 

 to the part of the Island of Sumatra which is north of the Equator, 

 to the district of the Battas ; and Pinus insularis (Endl.) although 

 it was at first given in London's Arboretum as P. timoriensis, really 

 belongs to the Philippines. Besides the Genus Pinus, the Southern 

 Hemisphere, according to the present state of our now happily ad- 

 vancing knowledge of the geography of plants, is entirely without 

 species of Cupressus, Salisburia (Gingko), Cunninghamia (Pinus 

 lanceolata, Lamb). Thuja (one of the species of which, Th. gigantea, 

 Nutt. found on the banks of the Columbia, has a height of above 

 180 Eng. feet), Juniperus, and Taxodium (MirbeFs Schubertia). 

 I include the last-named genus with the less hesitation, as a Cape of 

 Good Hope plant (Sprengel's Schubertia capensis) is no Taxodium, 

 but constitutes a genus of itself Widringtonia (Endl.), in quite a dif- 

 ferent division of the family of Coniferse. 



This absence, from the Southern Hemisphere, of true Abietinese, 

 JuniperineaB, Cupressinese, and all the TaxodineaD, as well as of 

 Torreya, Salisburia adiantifolia, and Cephalotaxus from among the 

 Taxinese, recalls forcibly the obscurity which still prevails in the 

 conditions which have determined the original distribution of vege- 

 table forms, a distribution which cannot be sufficiently and satisfac- 

 torily explained solely by similarity or diversity of soil, thermic re- 



