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GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS. 547 
communicating their own freshness to the forest~vegetation, pre- 
senting to the tired traveller a delicious and limpid water, while 
the banks of the stream are carpeted with mosses, Lycopodes, and 
Ferns, from the midst of which spring Begonias, with delicate 
and succulent stems, unequal leaves, and flesh-coloured flowers. 
Plate XXIII. is a reproduction of a celebrated engraving published 
about the year 1825. It represents the untrodden depths of a 
Brazilian forest, from a picture by the Count de Forbin, Director 
of the Royal Museum. If we glance at the vegetation of the. 
countries of the great American continent situated above the 
tropic of Capricorn, which constitute Chili, La Plata, and Pata- 
gonia, we shall find two Palms in Chili,—these are the Jubea 
Spectabilis, and the Ceroxylon australis, a magnificent tree; the 
Araucaria imbricata, which rises to the height of a hundred and 
fifty feet ; its verticillate branches lying almost horizontally, and 
covered with spiny leaves. This tree here forms immense 
forests. A few Graminezx, Heaths, Labiate, Umbellifers, Fuchsias, 
Loasas, Myrtles, and Laurel-bushes, but particularly ligneous 
composites, form the chief part of the vegetation. , 
The forests of Paraguay, still little known, situated along the 
coast of the Atlantic, consist of ligneous Composite and Ilex 
Paraguensis, usually called Paraguayan Tea, of which Paraguay 
annually exports nearly five hundred million pounds. 
In the Argentine Republic, Auguste de Saint Hilaire found 
about five hundred species of plants, amongst which only fifteen 
belonged to families which are not European. 
When we reach the south coast of Patagonia and the Falkland 
Islands; a few- brown and coriaceous Gramines and Cyperacez, 
such as Dactylis cespitosa, Carex trifida, Bolax glebaria, Nine- 
leaved Oxalis, Cardamine glacialis, a Veronica, a Calceolaria, an 
Aster, Opuntia Darwinii, Lomaria Magellanica among the arbo- 
rescent Ferns, a few Brambles, thickets of Bilberries and Arbutus, 
include nearly the whole of the vegetation of these desert lands, 
where Mosses, Hepaticas, and Lichens reign supreme. We now 
- reach the southern part of South America. We approach the 
South Pole ; consequently vegetation almost entirely ceases: we 
find upon this frozen soil-the general characteristics of Polar 
Vegetation. In the stormy region of Terra del Fuego thick 
NN 2 
