240 



Selections, 



[NO. 2, NEW SERIES, 



The Island of Java must be considered as having not high alone 

 but also low temperature, and different climates, even if it be not 

 known by experience. On one and the same island grow cocoa- 

 palms and species of oak; from its plains to the different eleva- 

 tions are found all the varieties of vegetation which are met with 

 from the equator to the temperate zones. The plains of Java fur- 

 nish the tropical flora in all its varieties ; and the heights, table- 

 lands, and mountain-tops, the floras of Southern and Middle Eu- 

 rope. The plains of Europe present many floras agreeing with 

 that of the Java mountain-tops, which are 9,000 feet higher. 



"The progress of our knowledge of the geographical propaga- 

 tion of plants, and of that propagation in connection with the 

 knowledge of the physical constitution of countries, offer a vast 

 field for enterprise in the culture and transplantation of plants, 

 which may sometimes be brought from distances of thousands of 

 miles. 



" The situation of many of the Quinquina districts being analo- 

 gous to the geographical breadth of Java, must not be lost sight of. 

 If this island does not present a like temperature in respect to 

 the division of the quantity of sunlight, that mighty spur to vege- 

 tation, it will however give some analogy. 



"There exists at Java a principal requisite, which is of the 

 greatest importance, and which almost warrants success. It 

 is this : a good result to the transplantation of the Quinquina- 

 tree from its native soil to a foreign land, can only be expected if 

 (except conditions of less weight) one principal condition be ful- 

 filled, namely that the trees be not planted in any country beyond the 

 tropics ; as only in the tropics does a temperature sufficiently even 

 and unvarying last during the whole year, and by which the free 

 development of the Quinquina-tree is made dependent by nature, 

 as it appears in the geographical extent of those trees in Bolivia, 

 Peru, Ecuador, New Granada. For this reason, the countries 

 without the tropics, as Algiers or the Himalaya Mountains, could 



Indian plant, although from the different information and opinions we may deduce 

 that the matter is uncertain. See Roxb. Fl. Ind. iii. 379 ; Wight and Arn. Prodr. 

 p. 202 ; Royle, 111. Himal. 1. 195 ; Alph. de Candolle, Geogr. Bot. ii. 854. 



