HISTORY OF PLANTS. 407 
because the whole is mountainous. Madagascar is 
so rich in plants, because this great island is quite 
mountainous, and both Africa and Asia, between 
which it lies, have imparted their various produc- 
tions to it. The Bahama .islands owe their super- 
abundance of plants to their own mountains, and 
to neighbouring countries. ‘Uhere we find, besides, 
peculiar plants, most of Carolina and Florida, and 
many from the West India islands, and of the bay 
of Mexico. 
§ 368. 
I think there is hardly one plant which originally 
erew wild in all latitudes. Plants, which are thus 
far disseminated, were so by man. ‘The Alsine mz- 
dia, of which Linné and others think that it grows 
every where, is only found where it has been brought 
along with culinary plants. Ido not find it, how- 
ever, mentioned by any of the authors on the na- 
tural history of the Indies, though, I believe, it may 
grow there. But I doubt whether this plant would 
be able to propagate itself, in the hot Africa. The 
common nightshade, (Solanum nigrum), and the 
strawberry, (Fragaria vesca), are said to be far disse- 
minated, But philosophers mistook similar plants 
for varieties of the common European species, and 
indeed considered’ their dissemination in by far too 
extensive a view. Only those plants which most 
commonly inhabit the coasts, are farther dissemin- 
ated than those of the interior of a country. But 
even of them the Portulaca oleracea, the Sonchus 
eleraceus, and the Apium graveolens, are probably the 
Gc 4 only 
