54 FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 
plants, but few varieties of species; or comparatively few 
plants, but amongst these great variety. 
' I may state in illustration that at the Cape of Good 
Hope we have arich flora, but a rich vegetation would 
scarcely be a correct description of what is here to be 
seen. Of coniferous plants, such as are the cabbage and 
the wallflower, there are 17 genera, and one of them, 
the heliophila, is represented by upwards of 60 species. 
There are upwards of 100 species of crassula. Of the 
fig marigold, or mesembryanthum, there are upwards of 
300 species. Among Cape bulbs there are of iris-like 
plants alone upwards of 20 genera—all of them, I may 
say, represented by several species. Of Cape heaths 
there are between 300 and 400 species described. Of 
pea like plants there are upwards of 80 genera ; and of 
some of these, from 25 to upwards of 100 species are 
described by Dr Harvey as flora capensis ; and of compos- 
tae, or daisy-like plants, there are 154 genera, and of these 
there are 1000 different species. 
We have here a rich flora, but it does not follow that 
there is a rich and luxuriant vegetation. Continuous turf 
is almost unknown ; bush there is in plenty ; and there are 
fields of cereals and mesembryanthema, but there is 
nothing like the luxuriance of vegetation to be seen in 
many a wood and thicket, and winding lane in Britain. 
And different conclusions must be arrived at according 
as we may adopt one or other of different principles in 
estimating the richness of a district in its flora and vege- 
tation—according as we look to the number of orders of 
plants growing there, or to the number of genera of plants 
belonging to any one or more orders, or to the number of 
species of any of these genera, or to the number of specimens 
of these genera and species. a 
By Schleiden, writing on this subject, it is remarked :— 
‘The information we have obtained in regard to the so- 
called habitations—the place of growth and the native 
country of a plant—has enabled us to give an orderly 
arrangement to our conceptions relative to the distribu- 
