NUMBER OF VEGETABLE SPECIES. 339 



vividly depicts, would see no beauty whatever, whose heart 

 would not respond to it, whose sympathies would not be 

 aroused by all its variety of outline and all its rich magnificence 

 of colour ! Yet not in so wide a landscape alone, but in the 

 smallest nook, in the little clump of elms by the side of the 

 stream, in yonder grassy knoll rising straight up from the old 

 churchyard, in the quiet angle of the green pasture-meadows, 

 there is a whole world of wonder and beauty for him who 

 has eyes to see and a heart to feel ! Look at the flowery bank 

 which runs along the side of an English lane. Is it not 

 crowded with objects of the rarest and purest interest? 

 Count the many varieties of grasses which clothe it so abun- 

 dantly, count the many species of flowers and herbs which 

 adorn it with a grace beyond all human skill, and acknowledge 

 that in itself it might supply the inquirer with matter for years 

 of study and meditation. 



Pursuing this train of thought, I was led to think of the 

 number of genera and species into which the plant world is 

 divided, a remarkable proof, not only of the power and 

 wisdom, but of the goodness of the Creator, of His desire to 

 furnish man with inexhaustible sources of pleasure and enter- 

 tainment ; and finally, to put to myself the question, How 

 many vegetable species exist over the whole surface of the 

 globe? If this corner of a leafy English lane is so rich in 

 variety, what must be the case with " the wide, wide world ? " 



I was now brought to see that a question so difficult could, 

 like so many others, be usefully approached only by its 

 inferior limit ; in other words, that in the actual condition of 



