7 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS. 545 
brilliant sky imaginable, impart a grave and severe aspect to. the 
landscape. 
“In order to appreciate all the beauties of a tropical forest, 
we must plunge into retreats as old as the world. Nothing there 
reminds us of the fatiguing monotony of our Oak and Fir forests ; 
each tree has a bearing peculiar to itself. Each has its own 
foliage, and often its own peculiar shade of verdure. Gigantic 
‘Specimens of vegetation, each belonging to different, sometimes 
to remote families, mingle their branches and blend their foliage. 
Five-leaved Bignonie grow beside Cesalpinias, and the golden 
leaves of the Cassia spread themselves in falling upon arbo- 
_rescent Ferns. Myrtles, and Eugenias, with their thousand times 
divided branches, are finely contrasted with the elegant simplicity 
of the Palms, and Cecropia spreads its broad leaves and branches, 
which resemble immense candelabra, among the delicate folioles 
of the Mimosa. There are trees with perfectly smooth bark, 
others defended by prickly spines; and the enormous trunk of 
a species of Wild Fig spreads itself out like oblique blades, 
which seem to support it like so many arched buttresses. 
“The obscure flowers of our Beeches and Oaks are only per- 
ceptible to naturalists; but in the forests of South America gigantic 
trees often display the most brilliant colours in their corolla. 
Long golden clusters hang from the branches of the Cassia. The 
Vochysias erect their thrysus of odd-shaped yellow flowers. Yellow 
and sometimes purple corollas, longer than those of our Digitalis, 
cover in profusion the tree of the Trumpet-flowered Bignonia; and 
the Chorisia are decked in flowers which somewhat resemble our 
- Lily in shape, and remind us of the Alistreemeria from the mix- 
ture of colours they present. 
“Certain vegetable forms, which assume at home very humble 
proportions, present themselves with a floral pomp unknown in 
temperate climates; some Borraginacese become shrubs, many 
Euphorbials assume the proportions of majestic trees, offering 
an agreeable shelter under their thick umbrageous foliage.” 
But it is principally among the Grktniviees that the greatest 
difference is observable. Of these there are a great number which 
attain no larger dimensions than our Wild Oat (Bromus), formmg 
| masses of grass only distinguished from European species by their 
NN ; 
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