TROPICAL SCENERY. 455 



with the subject under consideration. He who comprehends 

 nature at a single glance, and knows how to abstract his mind 

 from local phenomena, will easily perceive how organic 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 degree, 

 from the north of Europe to the lovely shores of the Mediter- 

 ranean than from the Iberian Peninsula, Southern Italy, and 

 Greece, towards 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 veiled 

 by light and feathery clouds, and thinner towards the 

 gloomy north, where the returning frost too soon blights the 

 opening bud or destroys the ripening fruit. Whilst in the 

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

 with lichens, the region of palms and of feathery arborescent 

 ferns shows the trunks of Anacarclia and of the gigantic spe- 

 cies 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 Orchideae, while climbing Bauhiniae, Passi- 

 florae, and yellow-blossomed Banisteriae, entwining the stems 

 of forest trees, spread far and high in air, and delicate flowers 

 are unfolded from the roots of the Theobromse, and from the 

 thick and rough bark of the Crescentiae and the Gustaviae. In 

 the midst of this abundance of flowers and leaves, and this 

 luxuriantly wild entanglement of climbing plants, it is often 

 difficult for the naturalist to discover to which stem different 

 flowers and leaves belong; nay, one single tree adorned with 

 Paulliniae, Bignoniae, 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 

 characteristic beauty: to the tropics belong diversity and 

 grandeur in the forms of plants ; to the north, the aspect of 

 tracts of meadow-land, and the periodic and long- desired 

 revival of nature, at the earliest breath of the gentle breezes 

 of spring. As in the Musaceae (Pisang) we have the greatest 

 expansion, so in the Casuarinae and in the needle tree we have 



Priedrich von Martius, Physiognomic des Pflanzenreiches in Brasilie.n, 

 1824, and M. von Olfers, allgemeine Uebersicht von JSrasilien in Feld- 

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



