240 Vegetable Geography. 



with reference to temperature and light, which depends first upon 

 latitude, and secondly upon elevation above the sea. As we 

 proceed from the pole towards the equator, we find the tempera- 

 ture gradually increasing ; and as we ascend from the surface of 

 the ocean up into the atmosphere, we find the temperature gra- 

 dually decreasing until we reach the point of perpetual frost, 

 where vegetation ceases. In considering the matter of the vege- 

 tation of a given climate, it is necessary to take into account the 

 temperature peculiar to the latitude itself, and the reduction 

 caused by elevation. The effect of elevation is not in Europe 

 the same with all plants ; there are many that grow indifferently 

 upon the plains as upon mountains of perpetual snow. De Can- 

 dolle speaks of 700 instances, with which he was acquainted, of 

 the prevalence of this law. But, on the other hand, there are 

 many plants the limits of which are strictly circumscribed by 

 elevation or equivalent temperature ; as, for example, the chest- 

 nut, which does not rise higher on the Swiss Alps than 2400 

 feet; on i£tna it reaches no higher than 4000 feet. Many of 

 the plants found on the plains of the North occupy the mountains 

 of the South. The Olive, in 44° of latitude, its most northern 

 range, will not grow at a greater elevation than 1200 feet. In 

 general, it is found as we approach the equator vegetation be- 

 comes more and more affected by elevation ; and that as we 

 recede from it these effects gradually cease. 



Lindley remarks, that it is a common statement, that New 

 Holland produces no eatable fruits, for that even the few wild 

 berries which the traveller meets with, are more dry, tasteless 

 and insipid than those of any other country. The pears, say the 

 grumbling colonist, are made of wood ; cherries have the stones 

 on the outside of the flesh ; grapes are nauseous, and grow on 

 bindweed; the currant bushes prickly, and the gooseberries 

 without thorns ; whilst the honeysuckle has no odor, and the oak 

 no foliage. Although these are mere idle tales, arising from the 

 names of European plants being misapplied to New Holland 

 species of a totally different nature, yet it is true that the whole 

 of that vast continent is, as far as has yet been seen, destitute of 

 any fruit-bearing plant that deserves cultivation. 



