338 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



and in the Paramo de Saraguru, in 4 26' north, and 3 40' south 

 latitude ; and an Ephedra (E. ainericana) near Guallabamba, north 

 of Quito. 



Among the Coniferae, there are common to the Northern and 

 Southern Hemispheres the genera Taxus, Gnetum, Ephedra, and 

 Podocarpus. The last-named genus was distinguished from Pinus 

 long before L'Heritier by Columbus himself, who wrote on the 

 25th of November, 1492 : " Pinales en la Serrania de Haiti que 

 no llevan pinas, pero frutos que parecen azeytunos del Axarafe de 

 Sevilla." (See my Examen Grit., t. iii. p. 24.) There are species 

 of Taxus from the Cape of Good Hope to 61 N. lat. in Scandi- 

 navia, or through more than 95 degrees of latitude ] Podocarpus 

 and Ephedra extend almost as far. In Cupuliferge, the species of 

 oak which we are accustomed to regard as a northern form do not 

 indeed pass beyond the Equator in South America ; but in the Indian 

 Archipelago they re-appear in the Southern Hemisphere in the 

 Island of Java. To the Southern Hemisphere belong exclusively 

 ten genera of Coniferse, of which I will name here only the princi- 

 pal : Araucaria, Dammara (Agathis Sal.), Frenela (with eighteen 

 New Holland species), Dacrydium and Lybocedrus, which is found 

 both in New Zealand and at the Straits of Magellan. New Zea- 

 land has one species of the genus Dammara (D. australis) and no 

 Araucaria. In New Holland in singular contrast the case is oppo- 

 site. 



Among tree vegetation, it is in the form of needle-trees that 

 Nature presents to us the greatest extension in length (longitudinal 

 axis) : I say among tree vegetation, because, as we have already 

 remarked, among oceanic Algse, Macrocystis pyrifera, which is 

 found between the coast of California and 68 S. lat., often attains 

 from 370 to 400 (about 400 to 430 Eng.) feet in length. Of 

 Coniferae i (setting aside the six Araucarias of Brazil, Chili, New 

 Holland, Norfolk Island, and New Caledonia), the loftiest are those 

 which belong to the northern temperate zone. As in the family 

 of Palms we found the most gigantic, the Ceroxylon andicola, 

 above 180 French (192 English) feet high, in the temperate 

 mountain climate of the Andes, so the loftiest Coniferse belong, 

 in the Northern Hemisphere, to the temperate north-west coast of 



