ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITION'S. 185 



As some of the Bambusaceee (arborescent grasses) advance 

 into the temperate zone, so within the tropics they do not 

 suffer from the temperate climate of the mountains. They 

 certainly grow more luxuriantly as social plants from the. 

 sea coast to the height of about 2560 English feet; for 

 example, in the province de las Esmeraldas, west of the 

 Volcano of Pichincha, where Guadua angustifolia (Bambusa 

 Guadua in our Plantes equinoxiales, T. i. Tab. xx.) produces 

 in its interior much of the siliceous Tabaschir (Sanscrit 

 tvakkschira, ox-milk). In the pass of Quindiu we saw 

 the Guadua growing at an elevation which we found by 

 barometric measurement to be 5400 (5755 English) feet 

 above the level of the Pacific. Nastus borbonicus is called 

 by Bory de St. Vincent a true Alpine plant ; he states that 

 it does not descend lower on the declivity of the Volcano 

 in the Island of Bourbon than 3600 (3837 English) feet. 

 This recurrence or repetition as it were at great elevations 

 of the forms characteristic of the hot plains, recalls the 

 mountain group of palms before pointed out by me (Kunthia 

 Montana, Ceroxylon andicola, and Oreodoxa frigida), and a 

 grove or thicket of Musacese sixteen English feet high 

 (Helicouia, perhaps Maranta), which I found growing isolated 

 at an elevation of 6600 (7034 English) feet, on the Silla 

 de Caraccas. (Relation hist. T. i. p. 605-606.) As, 

 with the exception of a few isolated herbaceous dicotyledones, 

 grasses form the highest zone of phsenogamous vegetation 

 round the snowy summits of lofty mountains, so also, in 

 advancing in a horizontal direction towards either pole of the 

 Earth, the phsenogamous vegetation terminates with grasses. 



