U6 COSMOS. 



painters, and thus heightening their powers of artistic crea- 

 tion. 



I would here be permitted to refer to some remarks which 

 I pubHshed nearly half a century ago, in a treatise which has 

 been but little read, entitled Ideen zu einer Physio g7icmiik 

 der Gewdckse* and which stands in the most intimate con- 

 nection with the subject under consideration. He who com- 

 prehends nature at a single glance, and knows how to abstract 

 his mind from local phenomena, will easily perceive how or- 

 ganic force and the abundance of vital development increase 

 with the increase of warmth from the poles to the equator. 

 This charming luxuriance of nature increases, in a lesser de- 

 gree, from the north of Europe to the lovely shores of the 

 Mediterranean than from the Iberian Peninsula, Southern 

 Italy, and Greece, toward the tropics. The naked earth is 

 covered with an unequally woven, flowery mantle, thicker 

 where the sun rises high in a sky of deep azure, or is only 

 vailed by light and feathery clouds, and thinner toward the 

 gloomy north, where the returning frost too soon blights the 

 opening bud or destroys the ripening fruit. While, in the cold 

 zones, the bark of the trees is covered with dry moss or wdth 

 lichens, the region of palms and of feathery arborescent ferns 

 shows the trunks of Anacardia and of the gigantic species of 

 Ficus embellished by Cymbidia and the fragrant Vanilla. 

 The fresh green of the Dracontium, and the deeply-serrated 

 leaves of the Pothos, contrast with the variegated blossoms of 

 the OrchidcBB, while climbing Bauhinise, Passiflora3, and yel- 

 low-blossomed BanisterisB, entwining the stems of forest trees, 

 Rpread far and high in air, and delicate flowers are unfolded 

 from the roots of the Theobromae, and from the thick and 

 rough bark of the Crescentise and the Gustavias. In the 

 midst of this abundance of flowers and leaves, and this luxu- 

 riantly wild entanglement of climbing plants, it is often difii- 

 cult lor the naturalist to discover to which stem different 

 (lowers and leaves belong ; nay, one single tree adorned with 

 PauUinise, Bignonise, and Dendrobia, presents a mass of vege- 

 table forms which, if disentangled, would cover a considerable 

 space of ground. 



Each portion of the earth has, however, its peculiar and 



* Humboldt, Ansichten der Natur, 2te Ausgabe, 1826, bd. i., s. 7, 16, 

 21, 36, and 42. Compai'e, also, two veiy instructive memoirs, Fried- 

 rich von Martius, Physiognomie des PJlanzenreichcs in Brasilien, 1824, 

 and M. \on Olfers, allgemeine Uebersicht von Brasilien, in Feldner'a 

 Reisen, 1828, th. i., s. 18-23. 



