18 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



selves in masses, the outlines and distribution of the leaves 

 and the form of the stems and of the branches are blended 

 together. The painter (and here the artist's delicate tact 

 and appreciation of nature are demanded) can distinguish in 

 the middle distance and background of a landscape groves of 

 palms or pines from beech woods, but he cannot distinguish 

 the latter from woods consisting of other deciduous forest 

 trees. 



Above sixteen different forms of vegetation are princi- 

 pally concerned in determining the aspect or physiognomy 

 of Nature. I mention only those which I have observed 

 in the course of my travels both in the New and Old 

 Continents, where during many years I have attentively 

 examined the vegetation of the regions comprised between 

 the 60th degree of North and the 12th degree of South 

 latitude. The number of these forms will no doubt be 

 considerably augmented when travellers shall have penetrated 

 farther into the interior of Continents, and discovered new 

 genera of plants. In the South-eastern part of Asia, the 

 interior of Africa and of New Holland, and in South America 

 from the river of the "Amazons to the province of Chiquitos, 

 the .vegetation is still entirely unknown to us. How if at 

 some future time a country should be discovered in which 

 ligneous fungi, Cenomyce rangiferina, or mosses, should 

 form tall trees ? The Neckera dendroides, a German spe- 

 cies of moss, is in fact arborescent ; and bamboos (which are 

 arborescent grasses) and the tree ferns of the tropics, which 

 are often higher than our lime-trees and alders, now pre- 

 sent to the European a sight as surprising as would be that 



