260 THE GEOGRAPHY 



turn again to Africa, where the Desert, Delile's region, 

 ripens, in the oases, the Date, and in the tender-leaved 

 Acacias concocts the abundance of Gum Arabic and Senegal, 

 which commerce brings to the service of our industry. To 

 this, eastward, adjoins ForskaTs region, where the Balsam- 

 trees predominate; on the south, Adanson's, the charac- 

 teristic plant of which also perpetuates the name of that 

 enlightened Botanist, the thousand-yeared giant stem of 

 the Adansonia digitata, the Baobab, or Monkey's-bread. 

 The little-known Africa gives only one more region, at its 

 southern extremity, Thunberg's, bedecked with Stapelias, 

 Mesembryanthemums, brilliant Heaths and evil-scented 

 Bucku-shrubs, but poor in woods. New Holland and Van 

 Diemen's Land bear the name of their first and most pro- 

 found Botanical investigator, Robert Brown ; and Central and 

 South America distribute their vegetable riches into eight 

 more regions, which are dedicated to Jacquin, Bonpland, 

 Humboldt, Ruiz and Pavon, Swartz, Martius, St. Hilaire, and 

 D'Urville ; among these, Jacquin's region is remarkable for 

 its strange Cacti, Humboldt's on the heights of the South 

 American Andes for its Quinoa forests, and that of Martius, 

 in the interior of Brazil, for its abundance of Palms, for its 

 quantity of climbing plants or Lianes and Parasitic 

 plants. 



These few outlines will suffice, not to sketch a picture of 

 the Flora of the World, since that would require the know- 

 ledge of a Robert Brown and the pen of a Humboldt, but 

 simply to indicate what wealth lies hidden here, of which, 

 at present, the industry and genius of the most distin- 

 guished inquirers have only been able to make a part 

 accessible to us. I turn now to the last section of my 

 essay, to a 



