98 POPULAE GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



with the Cotton-plant amongst the most important objects 

 of cultivation. 



We are not furnished with many details of the vegetation 

 of Italy. The luxuriant manner in which the Yine grows 

 there is a fact well known to all. In one of the hottest 

 places in that sunny land, Catania, at the foot of Mount 

 Etna, it even produces both fruit and flowers at the same 

 time. The Olive too is native in this country] it may 

 just be mentioned, in passing, that though the Olive itself 

 does not grow in England, we are not without some 

 branches of the family, as, for instance, the common Privet, 

 and the fragrant Lilac, which, though a native of Persia, is 

 now completely naturalized here. In both, the distinguish- 

 ing mark of the Olive tribe is to be traced, namely, the 

 very unusual combination of a regular monopetalous corolla 

 and two stamens ; indeed the blossoms of the Olive and the 

 Privet are not at all unlike in appearance. 



In the same way Mignonette has a connection living on 

 the chalk and volcanic rocks of the south of Italy and 

 Sicily; namely, the tribe of Capers, the seeds of which are 

 arranged exactly in the same way in the seed-pods as they 

 are in the Mignonette, and there is a great similarity in 

 their structure. 



