142 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



Turbaco near Carthagena in South America, and the cele- 

 brated Ochroma-like Hand-tree, the Macpalxochiquahuitl of 

 the Mexicans, (from macpalli, the flat hand), Arbol de las 

 Manitas of the Spaniards, our Cheirostemon platanoides ; in 

 which the long curved anthers project beyond the fine purple 

 blossom, causing it to resemble a hand or claw. Throughout 

 the Mexican States this one highly ancient tree is the only 

 existing individual of this extraordinary race : it is supposed 

 to be a stranger, planted about five centuries ago by the 

 kings of Toluca. I found the height above the sea where 

 the Arbol de las Manitas stands to be 8280 Trench (8824 

 English) feet. Why is there only a single individual, and 

 from whence did the kings of Toluca procure either the 

 young tree or the seed ? It seems no less difficult to account 

 for Montezuma not having possessed it in his botanical 

 gardens of Huaxtepec, Chapoltepec, and Iztapalapan, of 

 which Hernandez, the surgeon of Philip II ., was still able 

 to avail himself, and of which some traces remain even to 

 the present day ; and it seems strange that it should not 

 have found a place among the representations of objects of 

 natural history which Nezahualcoyotl, king of Tezcuco, 

 caused to be drawn half a century before the arrival of the 

 Spaniards. It is asserted that the Hand-tree exists in a wild 

 state in the forests of Guatimala. (Humboldt and Bon- 

 pland, Plantes equinoxiales, T. i. p. 82, pi. 24 ; Essai polit. 

 sur la Nouv. Esp., T. i. p. 98.) At the equator we have 

 seen two Malvaceae, Sida Phyllanthos (Cavan), and Sida pi- 

 chinchensis, ascend, on the mountain of Antisana and the 

 Volcano Rucu-Pichineha, to the great elevations of 12600 



