Book I. DISTRIBUTION OF VEGETABLES. 271 



and palms ; on the mountains are found oaks, firs, barberries, alders, brambles, and a 

 crowd of genera believed to belong only to countries of the north. Thus the inhabitant 

 of the equinoctial regions views all the vegetable forms which nature has bestowed around 

 him on the globe. Earth developes to his eyes a spectacle as varied as the azure vault 

 of heaven, which conceals none of her constellations." The people of Europe do not 

 enjoy the same advantage. The languishing plants, which the love of science or luxury 

 cultivates in our hot-houses, present only the shadow of the majesty of equinoctial vege- 

 tation ; but by the richness of our language, we paint these countries to the imagination, 

 and individual man feels a happiness peculiar to civilization. 



1737. The features of many plants are so obvious and characteristic, as to strike every 

 general observer. The scitamineae, tree-heaths, firs, and pines, mimosae, climbers, cacti, 

 grasses, lichens, mosses, palms, equisitaceae, arums, pothos, dracontium, &c. the chaflTy- 

 leaved plants, malvaceae, orchideae, liliacese, &c. form remarkable groups distinguish- 

 able at first sight. Of these groups, the most beautiful are the palms, scitamineas, 

 and liliaceee, which include the bamboos and plantains, the most splendid of umbra- 

 geous plants. 



1738. The native countries of plants may often be discovered by their features in the same 

 manner as the national distinctions which are observable in the looks and color of man- 

 kind, and which are effected chiefly by climate. Asiatic plants are remarkable for their 

 superior beauty ; African plants for their thick and succulent leaves, as in the case of the 

 cacti; and American plants for the length and smoothness of their leaves, and for a sort 

 of singularity in the shape of the flower and fruit. The flowers of European plants are 

 but rarely beautiful, a great portion of them being amentaceous. Plants indigenous 

 to polar and mountainous regions are generally low, with small compressed leaves ; but 

 with flowers large in proportion. Plants indigenous to New Holland are distinguishable 

 for small and dry leaves, that have often a shrivelled appearance. In Arabia they are low 

 and dwarfish ; in the Archipelago they are generally shrubby and furnished with prickles ; 

 while in the Canary Islands many plants, which in other countries are merely herbs, 

 assume the port of shrubs and trees. The shrubby plants of the Cape of Good Hope 

 and New Holland exhibit a striking similarity, as also the shrubs and trees of the 

 northern parts of Asia and America, which may be exemplified in the platanus orien- 

 talis of the former, and in platanus occidentalis of the latter, as well as in fagus syl- 

 vatica and fagus latifolia, or acer cappadocium and acer saccharinum ; and yet the herbs 

 and undershrubs of the two countries do not in the least correspond. " A tissue of 

 fibres," Humboldt observes, "more or less loose vegetable colors more or less vivid, 

 according to the chemical mixture of their elements, and the force of the solar rays, 

 are some of the causes which impress on the vegetables of each zone their characteristic 

 features." 



1739. The influence of the general aspect of vegetation on the taste and imagination of a 

 people the difference in this respect between the monotonous oak and pine forests 

 of the temperate zones, and the picturesque assemblages of palms, mimosas, plantains, 

 and bamboos of the tropics the influence of the nourishment, more or less stimu- 

 lant, peculiar to different zones, on the character and energy of the passions : these, 

 Humboldt observes, unite the history of plants with the moral and political history of 

 man. 



Sect. V. Systematic Distribution of Vegetables. 



1 740. The distribution of 2)lants, considered in respect to their systematic classifications^ 

 is worthy of notice. The three grand systematic divisions of plants are acotyledonese,. 

 dicotyledoneae, and monocotyledoneaj. A simplification of this division considers plants 

 as agamous, or phanerogamous, that is, without or with visible sexes. 



1741. Plants of visible sexes. Taking the globe in zones, the temperate contain 

 I part of all the phanerogamous or visible sexual species of plants. The equinoctial 

 countries contain nearly Jg, and Lapland only gL part. 



J 742. Plants with the sexual parts invisible or indistinct. Taking the whole surface 

 of the globe, the agamous plants, that is, mosses, fungi, fuci, &c. are to the pha- 

 nerogamae or perfect plants, nearly as 1 to 7 ; in the equinoctial countries as 1 to 5 ; in 

 the temperate zones as 2 to 5 ; in New Holland as 2 to 11 ; in France as 1 to 2 ; in 

 Lapland, Greenland, Iceland, and Scotland, they are as 1 to 1, or even more numerous 

 than the phanerogamous plants. Within the tropics, agamous plants grow only on the 

 summits of the highest mountains. In several of the islands of the Gulf of Carpentaria, 

 having a Flora of phanerogamous plants exceeding 200 species, R. Brown did not ob- 

 serve a single moss. 



1743. In the whole globe, the monocotyledonea, including the grasses, liliaceae, scita- 

 meneae, &c. are to the whole of the perfect plants as 1 to 6 ; in the temperate zones 

 (between 36 and 52,) as 1 to 4 ; and in the polar regions as 1 to 20. In Germany, 

 the monocotyledoneae are to the total number of species as 1 to 4^ j in France as 1 to 



