350 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS. 



by ramification properly so called. Lichtenstein, in his " Reisen im 

 siidlichen Africa" (th. i. s. 370), gives a Vivid description of the im- 

 pression made upon him by the appearance of a Euphorbia officinar- 

 um which he found in the " Chamtoos Rivier," in the Colony of the 

 Cape of Good Hope ; the form of the tree was so symmetrical that 

 the candelabrum-like arrangement was regularly repeated on a 

 smaller scale in each of the subdivisions of the larger branches, up 

 to 32 English feet high. All the branches were armed with sharp 

 spines. 



Palms, Yuccas, Aloes, tall-stemmed Ferns, some Aralias, and the 

 Theophrasta where I have seen it growing luxuriantly, different as 

 they are in the structure of their flowers, yet offer to the eye in the 

 nakedness (absence of branches) of their stems, and in the orna- 

 mental character of their tops or crowns, a certain degree of physiog- 

 nomic resemblance. 



The Melanoselinum decipiens (Hofm.), which is sometimes up- 

 wards of 10 or 12 feet high, and which has been introduced into 

 our gardens from Madeira, belongs to a peculiar group of arborescent 

 umbelliferous plants, to which Araliacese are otherwise allied, and 

 with which other plants, which will doubtless be discovered in course 

 of time, will be associated. Ferula, Heracleum, and Thapsia, do 

 indeed attain a considerable height, but they are still herbaceous 

 plants. Melanoselinum is still almost entirely alone as an umbel- 

 liferous tree ; Bupleurum (Tenonia) fruticosum (Linn.) of the shores 

 of the Mediterranean ; Bubon galbanum of the Cape, and Crithmum 

 maritimum of our sea-shores, are only shrubs. On the other hand, 

 the tropical zone, in which, according to the old and very just re- 

 mark of Adanson, UmbeUiferaB and Cruciferaa are almost entirely 

 wanting in the plains, presented to us on the high ridges of the 

 American Andes, the smallest and most dwarf-like of all umbel- 

 liferous plants. Among 38 species of plants which we collected at 

 elevations where the mean temperature is below 10 Reaumur 

 (54. 5 Fah.), there vegetate almost like mosses, and as if they made 

 part of the rock and of the often frozen earth, at an elevation of 

 12,600 (13,430 English) feet above the level of the sea, Myrrhis an- 

 dicola, Fragosa arctio'ides, and Pectophyturn pedunculare, intermin- 

 gled with which there is an equally dwarfed Alpine Draba. The 



