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tribe of Cacti in Mexico; Acacias and aloes in Southern Africa; 
and the Himalayan Mountains were the grand capital of the Rhodo- 
dendrons. Fir-forests extended in Norway and Russia for hundreds 
of miles; while in North America cypresses formed enormous woods 
and vast dismal swamps. These assemblages of plauts fixed the 
natural physiognomy of countries by their beauty, singularity, or im- 
posing size. The greatest natural families of plants were next 
detailed in order, but an instance or two of these must suffice. The 
grasses, of which there were 4,000 species, was a most remarkable 
group. These, forming vast natural meadows extending for 60,000 
square leagues in South America, rose in magnitude according to cli- 
mate; in Brazil, the grasses were 12 feet high, and a reed was men- 
tioned by Schomburg that was 40 feet; while, in India, the bamboos 
were arboreal, and rose to 100 feet. The palms, the nobles of the 
vegetable kingdom, were confined to the vicinity of the Tropics, but 
were numerous there, as 120 species grew in South America. The 
talipot palm of Ceylon towered to 200 feet in the air, while the little 
Chamerops, just venturing as far North as the Rock of Gibraltar, was 
in that position as unaspiring as our common male fern under a 
hedge. The “anes, or cordage plants of warm countries, often en- 
tangle the tropical forest in an inextricable maze—they rose to the 
tops of the highest trees and again descended, formed bridges over 
rivers, and extended for miles from their original source. The fern 
tribe was singularly affected by moisture, for while 1,200 species grew 
in the damp forests of the Equator, only 144 existed in the temperate 
zone, and in Egypt, where rain seldom if ever fell, only one species 
was known. Nations and countries had peculiar features impressed 
upon them by their plants, and romance and poetry were ready to take 
advantage of the bright imagery of Nature, which thus supplied pic- 
tures of a brighter or darker hue, according as sunny or snowy climes, 
flowery or arid regions, presented their lights or shadows to the brood- 
ing mind. But plants were in many instances so limited by geogra- 
phical considerations, that their localities were placed within the 
narrowest compass. The Arabs were accustomed to mark their course 
across the Syrian Desert, by the peculiar plants that presented them- 
selves at certain intervals ; and in America the compass-flower of the 
prairies, whose leaves pointed to the North, had been celebrated . 
for the aid it afforded the traveller in those boundless wastes. 
The tea-plant, it was well known, was confined to the hilly dis- 
tricts of China and Japan; but in South America a species of holly 
furnished another kind of tea peculiar to that continent, and equally 
