REVIEWS. 
63 
Popular Geography of Plants; or, a Botanical Excursion Round 
the World. By E. M. C. Edited by Charles Daubeny, M.D., F.R.8., 
&c. ; Professor of Botany and Rural Economy in the University of 
Oxford. 16mo. 22 coloured Plates. Price, 10s. 6d. Lovell Reeve, 
London. 1855. 
The manners and customs of the various races of men, their mutual com¬ 
munication for purposes of trade, the improvement of their political condition, 
and the development of their intellectual resources, are all intimately 
connected with the distribution of vegetable forms in the different regions 
of the earth. The characteristics of any country, the features of its sur¬ 
face, whether flat or undulating, or rugged and alpine, the nature of its 
rocks and soil, the gently-flowing streams or the rapid rivers which traverse 
it, the clearness and cloudinesss of its atmosphere; all have a share in 
determining, to some extent, the mental peculiarities of the human inhabi¬ 
tants. We must, however, add to these the vegetable productions which, 
characterized by their sameness or their variety, the lightness and grace¬ 
fulness of their habit, their massive appearance and their sombre character, 
as well as the useful products they yield, contribute materially to the 
general impression. 
The work whose title is at the head of the present article has.—■ 
“ For its object chiefly, so far as it can be done in such an outline, to bring 
together, within a small compass, facts which have been gathered from various 
authentic sources, so as to convey some idea of the various aspects of nature in those 
different and distant regions of the earth where dwell our unknown brothers and 
sisters in the great human family, and to help those who stay at home to create for 
themselves a kind of mental picture of the sights which daily meet the eyes of those 
absent friends who have made a home for themselves in foreign lands.” 
The geographical distribution of plants has occupied, at different periods, 
the attention of the highest authorities in natural science ; by the labours of 
Humboldt, Brown, De Candolle, Meyen, Hooker, and others, this branch 
of study has made rapid progress, and much has been elicited regarding 
the laws of the distribution of vegetable forms. 
The “ Popular Geography of Plants” will prove useful in diffusing a more 
general knowledge of a most interesting department of science. The 
classification into eight zones, proposed by the late Professor Meyen, has 
been followed, and a separate chapter is devoted to each. These zones are 
the equatorial, including 15°lat. on each side of the equator; the tropical, 
from 15° lat. to the tropics; the sub-tropical, from the tropics to 34° lat.; 
the warmer temperate, from 34° to 45° of lat.; the colder temperate, from 
45° to 58° lat.; the sub-arctic (and sub-antarctic), from 58° to the arctic 
(and antarctic) circle; and the polar zone, including all the land beyond 72° 
