164 



HISTORY OP THE VEGETABLE KINGDO.U 



mountains, strongly relieved against the azure 

 sky ; the whole illuminateil by the splendour of 

 an Italian sun. Nor is the olive itself by any 

 means destitute of beauty. It has been compared 

 to a wiUow ; it differs, however, very materially 

 in its colour, having none of that sickly hiie of 

 blueish green which gives such a peculiar cold- 

 ness to the landscapes of some of the Dutch 

 painters. The upper side of the leaf has pre- 

 cisely that tint familiarly known by the name 

 of olive. The under side is of shining white- 

 ness; and as the foliage is turned up by the 

 lightest breeze, its progress over the valleys cov- 

 ered with olive gardens, becomes visible in the 

 form of a silver cloud gliding across the land- 

 scape. 



According to Humboldt, the olive is cultivated 

 with success in every part of the old world, where 

 the mean temperature of the year is between 58° 

 and 06° ; thp temperature of the coldest month 

 not being under 42°, nor that of the summer be- 

 low 71 ° — 73". These conditions are found, as be- 

 fore observed, in Spain, Portugal, the South of 

 France, Italy, and Turkey. The olive also flour- 

 ishes on the northern coast of Africa ; but is not 

 found south of the Great Desert. In Europe it 

 extends as far north as latitude 44^°; in America, 

 scarcely to latitude 34°, so much greater is the 

 severity of the winter on the other side of the 

 Atlantic. In the neighbourhood of Quito, situ- 

 ated under the equator, at a height of eight thou- 

 sand feet above the level of the sea, where the 

 temperature varies even loss than in the island 

 climates of the temperate zone, the olive attains 

 to the magnitude of the oak, yet never produces 

 fruit. 



The inhabitants of the south of Europe em- 

 ploy the oil expressed from the fruit of this tree 

 for the same purposes as we employ butter, and 

 feel at least as much dislike to the produce of the 

 dairy, as an article of food, as we may feel to the 

 use of oil. In this country it is scarcely eaten 

 except with salads, for which purpose it is im- 

 ported in flasks of very thin glass, covered with 

 basket-work. The fruit of the olive is some- 

 times gathered in a green state and salted. We 

 are told by Malte-Brun, that if a line be drawn 

 from the Pyrenees, through the Cevcnnes, the 

 Alps, and the Hsemus, it will separate those 

 countries in which the inhabitants principally 

 make use of butter, from those in which they 

 make use of oil. 



The orange and lemon tree are rather more 

 tender than tlie olive. According to Humboldt, 

 tJiey require a mean annual temperature of 02°. 

 Orange gardens abound at Nice and Genoa, on 

 the borders of the sea, and sheltered by the high 

 range of the Alps to the north ; yet they are not 

 to be seen at Florence, or even at Rome, nor do 

 we meet with thorn again, in travelling througli 

 Italy towards the south, till wo arrive at Naj)les. 



Accordingly it appears, from registers of the daily 

 temperature during the years 1816, 1816, and 

 1817, that the temperature of the month of De- 

 cember at Nice exceeds that of Rome by 2°, tho 

 temperature of January by 8°, that of February 

 by 4°. 



The Spanish chestnut abounds in tho forests 

 of the south of Europe, and sometimes attains to 

 a great size. On the sides of Mount Etna are 

 some of prodigious magnitude : one of them is 

 named the chestnut of a hundred horse, intimat- 

 ing that it is capable of sheltering a hundred 

 horsemen under its boughs. It is one hundred 

 and ninety-six feet in circumference. The in- 

 terior is entirely decayed ; and a hut is built 

 within the trunk for the habitation of those who 

 are engaged in gathering and preserving the fruit. 

 Another tree found in the southern parts of Eu- 

 rope is the cork tree, a species of oak, whose 

 tough and elastic bark we use for stopping bottles. 

 In the same district are found, growing wild 

 among the rocks, many of the productions of our 

 gardens: thyme, lavender, and rosemary; the 

 cypress, the laurestinus, the arbutus, the bay, 

 and the Judas tree. The laurel appears to be a 

 native of Turkey. The cabbage rose and the 

 damask rose, which appear to have been culti- 

 vated in our gardens in very early times, were 

 originally brought from the south of Europe. 

 The evergreen roses, introduced within the last 

 twenty or thirty years, are, as their common 

 name imports, from China. Not one species of 

 rose is found in South America. According to 

 Arthur Young, the culture of the fig and the 

 pomegranate is limited nearly to the same line 

 as that of the olive. The culture of the mul- 

 berry, for feeding silkworms, is not marked by 

 quite so well defined a boundary, and appears to 

 extend rather further north. 



From the declivities of that long chain of 

 mountains which traverse Europe from west to 

 east, we have received some other of our garden 

 flowers. The auricula, the deep blue gentian, 

 and several species of saxifrage, delight in the 

 elevated regions approaching towards the limits 

 of perpetual snow. From the lower parts of the 

 mountains come the peony, the fraxinella, the 

 black hellebore (sometimes called the Christmas 

 rose), the yellow aconite, and the laburnum. 

 The common blue monkshood, and the yellow 

 monkshood, are also found in this district ; but 

 unlike the plants before mentioned, they extend 

 as far nortli as Sweden, and tlie latter even to 

 Lapland. The althoea frutex is a native of Car- 

 niola, on the southern side of the mountains, 

 Tho beautiful pyramidal bell-flower, bearing a 

 profusion of pale blue flowers, which is often 

 cultivated in pots, and trained in a fan-shape as 

 an ornament to halls and parlours, is from tho 

 southern side of the same chain. It is in moun- 

 tainous regions that the botanist, as well as tlie 



