238 PROSERPINA. 



geography of plants. At the height of a thou- 

 sand toises, the lofty savannahs of the hills 

 terminate in a zone of shrubs, which by their 

 appearance, their tortuous branches, their stiff 

 leaves, and the dimensions and beauty of their 

 purple flowers, remind us of what is called in 

 the Cordilleras of the Andes the vegetation of 

 the paramos* and the punas. We find there 

 the family of the Alpine rhododendrons, the 

 thibaudias, the andromedas, the vacciniums, and 

 those befarias f with resinous leaves, which we 

 have several times compared to the rhododendron 

 of our European Alps. 



" Even when nature does not produce the same 

 species in analogous climates, either in the plains 

 of isothermal parallels, or on table-lands the 

 temperature of which resembles that of places 

 nearer the poles, we still remark a striking re- 

 semblance of appearance and physiognomy in 

 the vegetation of the most distant countries. 

 This phenomenon is one of the most curious in 

 the history of organic forms. I say the history ; 

 for in vain would reason forbid man to form 

 hypotheses on the origin of things : he is not 



* ' Deserts.' Punas is not in my Spanish dictionary, and the refer- 

 ence to a former note is wrong in my edition of Humboldt, vol. iii., p. 490. 

 f " The Alpine rose of equinoctial America," p. 453. 



