PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 17 



the olive-tree in the Citadel of Athens, or the Elm of Ephe- 

 sus), the diameter of which I found, when I visited those 

 Islands, to be more than 16 feet, had the same colossal size, 

 when the Trench adventurers, the Bethencourts, conquered 

 these gardens of the Hesperides in the beginning of the 

 fifteenth century ; yet it still flourishes, as if in perpetual 

 youth, bearing flowers and fruit. A tropical forest of Hy- 

 menseas and Csesalpiniese may perhaps present to us a monu- 

 ment of more than a thousand years' standing. 



If we embrace in one general view the different species of 

 phaenogamous plants at present contained in herbariums, 

 the number of which may now be estimated at considerably 

 above 80000, ( 13 ) we shall recognise in this prodigious 

 multitude certain leading forms to which many others may 

 be referred. In determining these leading forms or types, 

 on the individual beauty, the distribution, and the grouping 

 of which the physiognomy of the vegetation of a country 

 depends, we must not follow the march of systems of botany, 

 in which from other motives the parts chiefly regarded are 

 the smaller organs of propagation, the flowers and the fruit ; 

 we must, on the contrary, consider solely that which by its 

 mass stamps a peculiar character on the total impression 

 prodwced, or on the aspect of the country. Among the 

 leading forms of vegetation to which I allude, there are, 

 indeed, some which coincide with families belonging to 

 the " natural systems" of botanists. Such are the forms of 

 Bananas, Palms, Casuarineae, and Coniferae. But the botanic 

 systematist divides many groups which the physiognomist 

 is obliged to unite. When plants or trees present them- 



VOL. n. c 



