22 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



in the equatorial regions. It is on their fruits that the 

 subsistence of a large part of the inhabitants of the torrid 

 zone chiefly depends, and, like the farinaceous cereals of the 

 north, they have followed man from the infancy of his 

 civilisation ( l6 ). The aboriginal site of this nutritious plant 

 is placed by some Asiatic fables or traditions on the banks 

 of the Euphrates, and by others, with more probability, 

 at the foot of the Himalaya. Grecian fables named the 

 fields of Enna as the happy native land of the cereals ; and 

 if in northern climes, where corn is cultivated in immense 

 unbroken fields, their monotonous aspect adds but little 

 to the beauty of the landscape, the inhabitant of the 

 tropics, on the other hand, in rearing groves of plantains 

 wherever he fixes his habitation, contributes to the adorn- 

 ment of the earth's surface by the extension of one of the 

 most noble and beautiful forms of the vegetable world. 



The form of Malvaceae ( 17 ) and Bombacea?, represented 

 by Ceiba, Cavanillesia, and the Mexican hand- tree Cheiros- 

 temon, has enormously thick trunks; large, soft, woolly 

 leaves, either heart-shaped or indented ; and superb flowers 

 frequently of a purple or crimson hue. It is to this group 

 of plants that the Baobab, or monkey bread-tree, (Adan- 

 sonia digitata), belongs, which, with a very moderate elevation, 

 has a diameter of 32 English feet, and is probably the 

 largest and most ancient organic monument on our planet. 

 In Italy the Malvaceae already begin to impart to the vege- 

 tation a peculiar southern character. 



The delicately pinnated foliage of the Mimosa form ( 18 ), 

 of which Acacia, Desmanthus, Gleditschia, Porleria, and 



