ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 361 



The Escallonias among which E. myrtilloides, E. tubar, and 

 E. floribunda are the ornament of the Paramos, and by their phy- 

 siognomy remind the beholder strongly of the myrtle-form once 

 constituted, in combination with the European and South American 

 Alp-roses (Rhododendrum and Befaria), and with Clethra, Andro- 

 meda, and G-aylussaceia buxifolia, the family of Ericese. Robert 

 Brown (see the Appendix to Franklin's Narrative of a Journey to 

 the Shores of the Polar Sea, 1823, p. 765) has raised them to the 

 rank of a separate family, which Kunth places between Philadel- 

 phese and Hamamelidese. The Escallonia floribunda offers- in its 

 geographical distribution one of the most striking examples, in the 

 habitat of the plant, of proportion between distance from the Equa- 

 tor and vertical elevation above the .'level of the sea. In making 

 this statement, I again support myself on the authority of my acute 

 and judicious friend Auguste de St.-Hilaire (Morphologic vegetable, 

 1840, p. 52): "Messieurs de Humboldt et Bonpland ont decou- 

 vert dans leur expedition T Escallonia floribunda a 1400 toises par 

 les 4 de latitude australe. Je Fai retrOuve* par les 21 au Bresil 

 dans un pays eleve, mais pourtant infiniment plus bas que les Andes 

 du Perou : il est commun entre les 24. #0' et les 25. 55' dans les 

 Campos Grerses, enfin je le revois au Rio de la Plata vers les 35, au 

 niveau melne I'ocean." 



Trees belonging to the group of Myrtacese to which Melaleuca, 

 Metrosideros, and Eucalyptus belong in the subdivision of Lepto-. 

 spermese produce partially, either where the leaves are replaced by 

 phyllodias (leaf-stalk leaves), or by the peculiar disposition or direc- 

 tion of the leaves relatively to the un swollen leaf-stalk, a distribution 

 of stripes of light and shade unknown in our forests of round-leaved 

 trees. The first botanical travellers who visited New Holland were 

 struck with the singularity of the effect thus produced/ Robert 

 Brown was the first to show that this strange appearance arose from 

 the leaf-stalks (the phyllodias of the Acacia longifolia and A. sua- 

 veolens) being expanded in a vertical direction, and from the circum- 

 stance that the light, instead of falling on horizontal surfaces, falls 

 on and passes between vertical ones. (Adrien^de Jussieu, Cqurs de 

 Botanique, pp. 106, 120, and 700 ; Darwin, Journal of Researches, 

 1845, p. 433.) Morphological laws in the development of the leafy 



