29 
The pine of Norway withers, and the oak is un- 
known, where the araucaria rises to the height of 
200 feet. The adansonia is found 80 or 90 feet in 
girth. The climate of Spitzbergen has about 30 or 
40 species of plants; Iceland a few hundred species. 
Some thousands belong to the temperate, many thou- 
sands to the torrid zone. 
Dicotyledonous plants increase in warm climates; 
acotyledonous toward the pole. The monocotyle- 
donous, requiring generally much moisture, abound 
in temperate rather than in hot climates. Annuals 
for the most part shun the extremes of heat and 
cold. The total number of plants now known is 
about 60,000, divided by Decandolle into about 5000 
genera§, 
Food. 
All organized beings appear to be endowed, with- 
in certain limits, with means of inflicting or repell- 
ing injuries. The manifest possession of these means 
is doubtless more or less connected with, produces 
or influences, and becomes the index of peculiar 
habits. 
But as some are destined from their birth to some 
peculiarity of local condition, as to live on land or 
to live in water, to flourish in a warm or in a cold 
climate ; so some appear to be destined to seek their 
food from the flesh of other animals, either fresh or 
® See Mrs. Marcet, ‘‘ Conversations on Vegetable Physiology,” 
said to have been revised by Mr. Decandolle; the substance of 
whose lectures it professes to convey in the form of dialogue. 
