FOREST GEOGRAPHY AND ARCHEOLOGY. 223 



two of some peculiar kind, gave one to us and the other to 

 Japan, Mandchuria, or the Himalayas ; when she had only one, 

 divided these between the two partners on the opposite sides 

 of the table. The result, as to the trees, is seen in these four 

 diagrams. As to number of species generally, it cannot be 

 said that Europe and Pacific North America are at all in 

 arrears. But as to trees, either the contrasted regions have 

 been exceptionally favored, or these have been hardly dealt 

 with. There is, as I have intimated, some reason to adopt 

 the latter alternative. 



We may take it for granted that the indigenous plants of 

 any country, particularly the trees, have been selected by 

 climate. Whatever other influences or circumstances have 

 been brought to bear upon them, or the trees have brought to 

 bear on each other, no tree could hold its place as a member 

 of any forest or flora which is not adapted to endure even 

 the extremes of the climate of the region or station. But 

 the character of the climate will not explain the remarkable 

 paucity of the trees which compose the indigenous European 

 forest. That is proved by experiment, sufficiently prolonged 

 in certain cases to justify the inference. Probably there is no 

 tree of the northern temperate zone which will not flourish in 

 some part of Europe. Great Britain alone can grow double 

 or treble the number of trees that the Atlantic States can. 

 In all the latter we can grow hardly one tree of the Pacific 

 coast. England supports all of them, and all our Atlantic 

 trees also, and likewise the Japanese and north Siberian spe- 

 cies, which do thrive here remarkably in some part of the 

 Atlantic coast, especially the cooler temperate ones. The 

 poverty of the European sylva is attributable to the absence 

 of our Atlantic American types, to its having no Magnolia, 

 Liriodendron, Asimina, Negundo, no ^Esculus, none of that 

 rich assemblage of Leguminous trees represented by Locusts, 

 Honey-Locusts, Gymnocladus, and Cladrastis (even its Cer- 

 cis, which is hardly European, is like the Californian one 

 mainly a shrub) ; no Nyssa, nor Liquidambar ; no Ericacem 

 rising to a tree ; no Bumelia, Catalpa, Sassafras, Osage 

 Orange, Hickory, or Walnut ; and as to Conifers, no Hem- 



