230 



TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



and the canoe was lifted up by the negroes by 

 means of long poles. We were everywhere sur- 

 rounded with thick bushes, and delighted with the 

 wondrous diversity of the most beautiful groups 

 in the hedges by the water-side, entwined with 

 flowering gardenia, bignonia, seriania, and echites. 

 A great part of the shores of the bay are covered 

 with similar amphibious plants, which extend into 

 the country only in those places where the land 

 scarcely rises above the level of the sea. In the 

 same manner as the limit, from which the vegeta- 

 tion assumes the forest or the alpine character, has 

 its particular representatives in the kingdom of 

 Flora, so also is the point where the meaner plants 

 of the sea-shore cease, and give way to the nobler 

 species, marked by its peculiar forms. It is remark- 

 able that the plants which grow on all the shores 

 of the new and old world, between the tropics, (Ehi- 

 zophora, Bruguiera, Conocarpus, Avicennia,^ with 

 seeds shooting while attached to the parent plant, 

 and branches striking into the earth, seem, by their 

 roots above and below, at once to represent in their 

 class also the image of that rich and generous ve- 

 getation which we admire in these latitudes. In 

 like manner as all these plants belong to the sea- 

 coast, so every principal river, the source of which 

 determines more or less a peculiar vegetation, has 

 a Flora of its own along its whole course, which 

 forms one of the most important features in the 

 physiognomy of the country through which it flows. 



