34 FLORA INDICA. 



growing on open slopes. The common Junipers defy all at- 

 tempts at circumscription by habit, and so do the Cotone- 

 asters. The Himalayan Box {Sarcococca), lUce that of Eu- 

 rope, is now an undershrub and now a tree. The Hippophae 

 and Myricaria of Western Tibet, which are first met with as 

 trees, as they ascend to colder regions dwindle down to little 

 shrubs, stunted and almost prostrate ; while Ephedra, an erect 

 shrub, two feet high, on the Indus, at 7000 feet, in the more 

 humid climate of Kunawur sends out long, lax, whip-like 

 branches, and at 15,000 feet is scarce an inch long. Let any 

 one recal to miud the gigantic Sal, with tapering trunk, iu the 

 Terai forest, and the gnarled tree it becomes on dry slopes; 

 or contrast the noble Sissoo near a village in Upper India 

 with the slender, pale, and apparently sickly (yet really robust 

 and healthy) inhabitant of the gravelly banks of streams at 

 the base of the Himalaya ; or the wild Jujube, an undershrub, 

 not a foot high, with the same plant cultivated as a spread- 

 ing tree. Many figs have straight, erect, unsupported trunks, 

 in open dry places, yet in humid forests the same species 

 send down thousands of roots from their branches, like the 

 Banyan. Most of the Indian annuals are, in like manner, 

 multiform; being tall, slender, and delicate, in moist grassy 

 places, during the rains, and prostrate and wiry in open spots, 

 and at a drier season : this is especially the case with the 

 little Cassia of the Mimosoid group, with various Indigoferm 

 and Alysicarpi, and even with jEschynomene. 



The universal recognition of the importance of habit, as a 

 character upon which to found specific distinction, is the more 

 surprising, when we consider how many well-marked varieties 

 are distinguished mainly by habit, and, though very permanent 

 when the plants are increased by cuttings or grafts, soon dis- 

 appear when they are raised from seed. The weeping birch 

 and ash are good instances of this, as well as the Lombardy 

 poplar — a dioecious tree, of which one sex only is known, and 

 that in cultivation, and which appears to be nothing more 

 than a tapering state of Populus nigra, accidentally produced, 



