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ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF FOREST-TREES. 
c: The primary divisions of the vegetable kingdom are characterised 
by these peculiarities in the structure of the embryo. The distribution 
of plants, however, according to this arrangement, is very unequal. Of 
about 44,000 species known to exist, 38,000 are flowering-plants; of 
which number 32,000 are dicotyledonous, and only about 6,000 mono- 
cotyledonous. The remaining 6,000 are cellular plants, and destitute 
of cotyledons, the structure of their seeds being, indeed, from the 
extreme minuteness of their organs, very little known, and probably 
altogether different from that of the seeds of vascular plants ; they are, 
perhaps, more analogous to bulbs than to perfectly formed seeds.”— 
Dr. Streetens Lecture. Wor . Nat. Hist. Soc. 
On the Characteristics of Forest-Trees.— “ Artists but in 
very few instances excel in pourtraying trees so as they can be identi¬ 
fied, without there is some good-natured description added. Drawings 
and engravings of trees, even by eminent men, are so destitute of cha¬ 
racter, that they may pass for any or every tree of the wood ; and, what 
is even worse, figures of trees are sometimes delineated that have never 
yet been seen on the face of the earth! If, indeed, we except the 
works of Gilpin and Strutt, we find our native illustrated literature 
very barren upon the subject. While thousands have dilated upon the 
effects of light and shade, and the advantages or disadvantages of a 
blue or muddy sky to the pictures under their critique, they have 
been altogether indifferent as to the characteristic features presented 
by various trees, and the differences exhibited by the rigid tortuosity of 
the oak, the cumbrous uniformity of the elm, the lofty and majestic 
bearing of the ash, the umbrella-like form of the sycamore or beech, or 
the thousand vivifying and latticed wiry sprigs of the dependent lime, 
letting in the mellow sunbeams as through the traceried interstices of 
an oriel window. Strutt, indeed, has admirably depicted many of our 
forest-trees in his f Sylva Britannica ’ and f Deliciae Sylvarum: ’ 
these are works of which we may be justly proud. Many, too, of 
Westall’s f Views on the Thames’ represent waving willows not to be 
mistaken; but the subject yet remains to be treated in a scientific and 
botanical manner, with regard to our indigenous trees. 
“ Every tree has some peculiar character, which, though perhaps at 
first difficult to describe, is at once caught and recollected by the eye of 
the observant naturalist ; so that whatever difficulty he may have to 
make out the trees of the landscape painter, he has none with those of 
the real landscape itself. The funereal yew, the bending willow, and 
the sturdy oak, will occur to all. This ‘ physiognomy ’ of vegetation 
depends, generally speaking, on a very few peculiarities;—of these the 
