ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 1 69 



feet in height, not a plant taken from among a vege- 

 tation stunted by cold either of latitude or elevation, 

 as is the case with the small Willow-tree, two inches in 

 height, (Salix arctica), but a small pha3nogamous plant 

 belonging to the fine climate of the southern tropic in the 

 Brazilian province of Goyaz. The moss-like Tristicha 

 hypnoi'des, from the monocotyledonous family of the Podo- 

 steinese, hardly reaches the height of 3 lines (^o-ths, or 

 less than three-tenths of an English inch.) "En traversant 

 le Rio Claro dans la Province de Goyaz," says an excellent 

 observer, Auguste de St.-Hilaire, "j'ape^us sur une pierre 

 une plante dont la tige n'avoit pas plus de trois lignes de 

 haut et que je pris d'abord pour une mousse. C'etoit 

 cependant une plante phanerogame, le Tristicha hypnoides, 

 pourvue d'organes sexuels comme nos chenes et les arbres 

 gigantesques qui a Tentour elevaient leur cimes majes- 

 tueuses." (Auguste de St.-Hilaire, Morphologic Yegetale, 

 Ih40, p. 98.) 



Besides the height of their stems, the length, breadth, and 

 position of the leaves and fruit, the form of the ramification 

 aspiring or horizontal, and spreading out like a canopy or 

 umbrella, the gradations of colour, from a fresh green or 

 silvery grey to a blackish-brown, all give to Coniferse a pecu- 

 liar physiognomy and character. The needles of Douglas's 

 Pinus lainbertiana from North-west America are five French 

 inches long; those of Pinus excelsa of Wallich, on the 

 southern declivity of the Himalaya, near Katmandoo, seven 

 French inches ; and those of P. longifolia (Roxb.), from the 

 mountains of Kashmeer, above a French foot long. In one 



