ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 845 



the under side of the leaf. The original native country of this tree 

 is unknown to us. By the connection and intercourse of Buddhistic 

 communities, it early passed from the temple-gardens of China to 

 those of Japan. 



In travelling from a port on the Pacific to Mexico, on our way to 

 Europe, I witnessed the singular and painful impression which the 

 first sight of a pine forest near Chilpanzingo made on one of our 

 companions, who, born at Quito under the equinoctial line, had 

 never seen needle-trees, or trees with " folia acerosa." It seemed 

 to him as if the trees were leafless ; and he thought that, as we were 

 travelling towards the cold north, he already recognized, in this ex- 

 treme contraction of the vegetable organs, the chilling and impover- 

 ishing influence of the Pole. The traveller whose impressions I 

 here describe, whose name neither my friend Bonpland nor myself 

 can pronounce without regret, was Don Carlos Montufar (son of the 

 Marquis of Selvalegre), an excellent young man, whose noble and 

 ardent love of freedom led him, a few years later, in the war of inde- 

 pendence of the Spanish Colonies, to meet courageously a violent 

 death, of which the dishonor did not fall on him. 



() p. 242." Tlie Pothos-form, Aroidese." 

 Caladium and Pothos are exclusively forms of the tropical world ; 

 the species of Arum belong more to the temperate zone. Arum 

 italicum, A. dracunculus, and A. tenuifolium, extend to Istria and 

 Friuli. No Pothos has yet been discovered in Africa. India has 

 some species of this genus (Pothos scandens and P. pinnata) which 

 are less beautiful in their physiognomy, and less luxuriant in their 

 growth, than the American species. We discovered a beautiful and 

 truly arborescent member of the group of Aroidese (Caladium arbo- 

 reum) having stems from 16 to 21 English feet high, not far from 

 the convent of Caripe, to the east of Cumanas. A very curious 

 Caladium (Culcasia scandens) has been discovered by Beauvois in 

 the kingdom of Benin. (Palisot de Beauvois, Flore d'Oware et de 

 Benin, t. i. 1804, p. 4, pi. iii.) In the Pothos-form the parenchyma 

 is sometimes so much extended that the surface of the leaf is inter- 

 rupted by holes as in Calla pertusa (Kuntji), and Dracontium pertu- 

 sum (Jacquin), which we collected in the woods round Cumana. 



