as THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
The Middle European region includes all the countries which 
constitute the southern provinces of Europe—Germany, Holland, 
Belgium, Switzerland, the Tyrol, and the British Isles, Upper 
Italy, and the greater part of France. This region, whose exact 
limits it would be difficult to trace, is very different from the 
preceding. It is milder, more temperate ; its woods and forests 
consist essentially of the Common Oak (Quercus robur), to which 
- we may add the Chestnut-tree, the Beech, and the Birch, the 
Elm, the Hornbeam, the Alder, &c; but the Oak predominates. 
Those trees, all of which lose their leaves during winter, give to 
the landscape a very peculiar feature, varying with the season. 
This region is especially favourable to the cultivation of the 
Cereals. An oblique line, drawn from the east to west, with 
certain inflections of its course, but ranging between the forty- 
seventh and forty-eighth parallel, and inclining a little towards 
the north, would divide the two zones—one, the Northern, in 
* which the Vine and the Mulberry yield to the rigour of winter, 
whose forests are chiefly composed of Conifers, where the cul- 
ture of the Apple and the Pear take their place, and which 
includes more of the Cyperacex, of the Rosacew, and of the 
Crucifers; the other, the Southern, characterised by the culture 
of the Vine, the Mulberry, and the Maize, and in which plants 
of the Labiate begin to predominate. Some idea of the vege- — 
tation of this region will be gathered from Plate XIX., which 
represents the banks of the Loire in the glory of its summer 
vegetation. 
In the Southern European region the Mediterranean faced the 
centre. It is a vast basin, whose shores present a vegetation | 
which, if not identical, is at least analogous in its whole extent. 
The Labiatexe: abound there, and in certain seasons the air is filled 
with their sweet perfume. To this extensive family we may add — 
a large number of Caryophyllacese, Cistaces, Liliacex, and 
Borraginex. The Mediterranean draws its most distinctive cha- 
racter, however, from the vast extent of uncultivated country, — 
where the Kermes Oak, the Phyllereas, the Evergreen Oak, and 
various Labiatew, half frutescent, reign supreme. These plants 
more especially abound in Italy, Spain, Greece, Algeria, and in 
the northern portion of Asia Minor. Nevertheless a new vege- 
