THE TROPICAL ZONE. 239 



feathery canopies were associated in our thoughts with all 

 that is joyous. Those however which we meet with here 

 convey a totally different impression, and are also "in 

 entire contrast with the general aspect of the flora of Brazil. 

 There is something truly sad and gloomy in the appearance 

 of these Eerns, whether we regard the sombre colour of 

 their trunk, and the unusual coating of dry husky scales 

 which invests the stems ; the spines with which both the 

 stems and petioles of many species bristle ; the uniform but 

 dull greenness of the fronds indicative rather of decrepi- 

 tude than of the freshness of youth and spreading loosely 

 in all directions from the trunk; or lastly, that peculiar 

 odour which distinguishes Perns from flowering plants in 

 general. 



" It would seem as if these Perns were, in a manner, relics 

 of an ancient period, when the Mephas primigenius, the 

 Megatherium, and other large animals wandered slowly 

 through thick woods composed of this class of plants ; and 

 that the latter are aliens, as it were, to the vegetation of the 

 present world, and belong to quite a different system of 

 creation. At present their peculiar and favourite station is 

 in the depths of the primeval forests, where they grow de- 

 tached from one another like hermits, in solitary and sombre 



