208 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



organs of reproduction ; the second from the form of the parts 

 which constitute the axes (i. e. the stems and branches), and 

 the shape of the leaves, dependent principally on the distribu- 

 tion of the vascular fascicles. As, then, the axes and appendi- 

 cular organs predominate by their volume and mass, they de- 

 termine and strengthen the impression which we receive ; they 

 individualise the physiognomic character of the vegetable 

 form and that of the landscape, or of the region in which 

 any of the more strongly-marked and distinguished types 

 severally occur. The law is here given by agreement and 

 affinity in the marks taken from the vegetative, i. e. the 

 nutritive organs. In all European colonies, the inhabitants 

 have taken occasion, from resemblances of physiognomy (of 

 ' rt habitus," " facies"), to bestow the names of European 

 forms upon tropical plants or trees bearing very different 

 flowers and fruits from those from which the names were 

 originally taken. Everywhere, in both hemispheres, northern 

 settlers have thought they found Alders, Poplars, Apple- 

 and Olive-trees. They have been misled in most cases by 

 the form of the leaves and the direction of the branches. 

 The illusion has been favoured by the cherished remembrance 

 of the trees and plants of home, and thus European names 

 have been handed down from generation to generation ; and 

 in the slave colonies there have been added to them deno- 

 minations derived from Negro languages. 



The contrast so often presented between a striking agree- 

 ment of physiognomy and the greatest diversity in the in- 

 florescence and fructification, between the external aspect 

 as determined by the appendicular or leaf- system, and the 



