THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 531 



It is owing to this variety in the means of transport that 

 vegetation has established itself with such great rapidity on 

 all parts of the globe which have been laid bare. Its most 

 elementary representative forms first appear on the naked 

 rock ; the air seems almost to suffice for their nourishment : 

 these are the lichens and the microscopic fungi. Then ap- 

 pear mosses, which, leaving mould behind them as they 

 decompose, form for the future a soil thick enough to nour- 

 ish the grasses. Lastly, come shrubs and bushes, and then 

 a verdant forest is soon seen rising in a district formerly 

 stricken with sterility. 1 



lock or twisted charlock, which is originally from Asia, was clandestinely intro- 

 duced into our fields when the cereals were brought hither. Spinach comes from 

 Media. The lentil (Ervum lens. Linn.) and the common haricot (Phaseolus vul- 

 garis} are probably derived from Arabia; melons and cucumbers, from the banks 

 of the Euphrates and Tigris; the^ilac (Syringa vulgaris) first came from Asia to 

 Vienna, and then spread through Europe. The lily (Lilium candidwri) is from 

 the mountains of Syria. The weeping willow (Salix Bdbylonica, Linn.) was trans- 

 planted from the plains of Babylon, and spread through Europe by means of the 

 poet Pope, who received a specimen from Smyrna. Tradition relates that the 

 father of all our orange-trees in Europe is still to be seen in the convent of St. 

 Sabina, on the Aventine Hill in Rome, and it is maintained that it was planted 

 by St. Dominic, A. D. 1200. The Hortensia, dedicated by Comerson to Hortensia 

 Lepaute, who distinguished herself in astronomy, comes originally from Japan, 

 whence it only arrived in 1788. It is from this island, also, that the camellia 

 comes, having been brought from thence by R. P. Came'li. Mexico also furnishes 

 an abundance of cacti. The dahlia was imported from Mexico, and thus named 

 in honor of a Swedish botanist, Andrew Dahl. 



1 In my youth I travelled through the celebrated valley of Goldau in Switzer- 

 land, where, twenty years previously, a whole mountain had given way in the 

 most frightful manner, crushing several villages, and covering an immense space 

 with fragments of broken rocks. All these rocks, lately quite bare, were already 

 covered with a luxuriant vegetation, and the tortuous and uneven road which had 

 been cleared through this vast sheet of ruin was everywhere smiling and fresh, 

 and covered with pines and shrubs of the most charming aspect. M. Boussin- 



