452 CHARACTER OF VEGETABLE VITALITY. CHAP. XI, 



a certain height, but merely till the developement 

 of their parts can be effected in the regular opera- 

 tion of nature, under a temperature already suffi- 

 cient. For the greater part, however, they flower 

 during our summer, though plants in opposite 

 hemispheres flower in opposite seasons. But in 

 all climates the time of flowering depends also 

 much on the altitude of the place as well as on 

 other causes affecting the degree of heat. Hence 

 plants occupying the polar regions, and plants oc- 

 cupying the tops of the high mountains of southern 

 latitudes are in flower at the same season ; and 

 hence the same flowers are later in opening in North 

 America than in the same latitudes in Europe, be- 

 cause the surface of the earth is higher, or the win- 

 ters more severe. 



Notde- ART. 3. Maturation of the Fruit. Plants ex- 

 hibit as much of diversity in the warmth and length 

 of time necessary to mature their fruit as in their 

 frondescence and flowering ; but the plant that 

 flowers the soonest does not always ripen its fruit 

 the soonest. The Hazle-tree, which blows in 

 February, does not ripen its fruit till autumn ; 

 while the Cherry, that does not blow till May. 

 ripens its fruit in June. It may be regarded, how- 

 ever, as the general rule that if a plant blows in 

 spring it ripens its fruit in summer, as in the case 

 of the Currant and Gooseberry ; if it blows in 

 summer it ripens its fruit in autumn, as in the case 

 of the Vine ; and if it blows in autumn it ripens its 



