are observed in the Distribution of Vegetable Forms, 
which receive colonists of a great number of genera, which we 
Suppose to belong exclusi\’ely to the vegetation of the plains. 
I have deemed it necessary to show the different points of 
view from v/hich the laws of the distribution of vegetables may 
be seen. It is in confounding them that we think the contra- 
dictions are to be found, w'hich are not otherwise than appa- 
rent, and which are erroneously attributed to the' uncertainty of 
observations. (Berliner JahrbucJier der Gewdchshunde^ Bd. i. 
p. 18. 21. 30.) When the following expressions are used:' 
“ this form or this family loses itself toward the frigid zone f 
“ it has its true native country in such and such a parallel 
it is a southern form f it abounds in the temperate zone 
we must expressly mention, if we consider the absolute number 
of species, the increase or decrease of their absolute frequency 
with the latitudes, or if we speak of families which predominate 
in the same degree over the rest of the phmnogamous plants. 
These expressions are correct: they afford a precise significa- 
tion, if we distinguish the different methods according to which 
we consider the variety of forms. The Island of .Cuba (to use. 
an analogous case taken from political economy) contains a 
much greater number of individuals of the African than of the 
Martinique race ; and yet the mass of these individuals predo- 
minates much more over the number of whites in this latter 
island than in that of Cuba. 
The rapid progress which the geography of plants has made 
within these twelve years, by the united labours of Messrs 
Brown j Walilenberg, Decandolle, Leopold de Bucb, Parrot, dia- 
mond, Schouw and Hornemann, are owing in a great measure to 
the advantages of the natural method of M. de Jussieiu In fol- 
lowing, I shall not say the artificial classifications of the sexual 
system, but the families founded upon vague and erroneous 
principles, (Dumosw^ Corydales^ Oleracea^) we no longer per-- 
ceive the great physical laws in the distribution of vegetables 
on the globe. It was Mr Robert Brown, who, in a celebrated 
memoir on the vegetation of New Plolland, first made known 
the true proportions between the great divisions of tlie vege- 
table kingdom, the- Acotyledonous, Monocotyledonous, and 
Dicotyledonous plants. (Brown, in Flinders' Voyage to Terra 
VOL. VI. NO. 12. APKTL 1822. 
T 
