Plants, characteristic of Different Nations. 349 



America, in Chili and Buenos Ayres, in South Africa, the 

 temperate New Holland and Van Dieman's Land ; to the cul- 

 tivation of the vine at Madeira, the Canary Islands, in South 

 Africa, and the highlands of South America ; to the extensive 

 cultivation of rice and cotton in the warmer parts of North 

 America and in the Brazils ; to the cultivation of the coffee 

 and sugar-cane in the West Indies and the Brazils ; the nut- 

 meg and the clove in the Isle of France, Bourbon, and in 

 several of the West Indian islands ; and, to conclude, thus 

 also we trace the cause of the tea plantations in the Brazils, 

 in Java, and India, and the cultivation of New Zealand flax 

 in New Holland. 



The Europeans indeed have introduced characteristic 

 plants to other races of men, who knew how to appreciate 

 them ; several European and tropical plants, for instance, for- 

 merly unknown, grow now in the South Sea Islands. 



The remnants of the aborigines inhabiting the table lands 

 of Peru, Chili, and Mexico, have received European plants ; 

 the negroes of the west coast of Africa have received the 

 maize, the tobacco, and several other American plants from 

 the Europeans. It is astonishing however to perceive how 

 little the other human races have contributed to the diffusion 

 of the characteristic plants ; the Arabs indeed are entitled 

 to the merit of having spread the cotton, sugar-cane, the 

 coffee, and the date palm, but then they belong to the same 

 principal race of men as the other Caucasians. It would 

 however appear, that the Chinese have procured the cotton 

 plant from Hindoostan, and that the Japanese have intro- 

 duced the tea shrub from China. 



The Europeans, or rather the Northern nations of Eu- 

 rope, consequently, are the people who, partly in their own 

 home, partly in their colonies, have collected the character- 

 istic plants of most other nations ; thus it is that their own 

 country, and particularly the north of Europe, is very poor 

 in characteristic plants, for all the most important cultivated 



