204 SCIENCE OF GARDENING. PART II. 



crowd of genera believed to belong only to countries of the north. Tims 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 civilisation. 



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

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

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

 leaved plants, malvaceae, orchideae, liliaceic, &c. form remarkable groups distinguishable 

 at first sight. Of these groups, the most beautiful are the palms, scitamineae, and liliacea;, 

 which include the bamboos and plantains, the most splendid of umbrageous plants. 



957. The native counti-ies 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 proportion 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 orientalis of the 

 former, and in platanus occidentalis of the latter, as well as in fagus sylvatica and fagus 

 1 all folia, or acer cappadocium and acer saccharinum; and yet the herbs and under- 

 shrubs of the two countries do not in the least correspond. " A tissue of fibres," Hum- 

 boldt observes, " more or less loose vegetable colors more or less vivid, according to 

 the chemical mixture of their elements, arid the force of the solar rays, are some of the 

 causes which impress on the vegetables of each zone their characteristic features." 



958. The influence of the general asjxct 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 stimulant, 

 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. 



