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Angusshire, is common to Arctic Europe and the mountains of North
America; and in the Falkland Islands there are more than 30
flowering plants identical with those in Great Britain.
There are many more instances of wide diffusion among the
monocotyledonous plants, especially grasses: the Phleum alpinum of
Switzerland grows without the smallest variation at the Straits of
Magellan, and Mr. Bunbury met with the European quaking-grass in
the interior of the country at the Cape of Good Hope; but the cellular
or cryptogamous class is most widely diffused—plants not
susceptible of cultivation, of little use to man, and of all others the
most difficult to transport. The Sticta aurata, found in Cornwall, is a
native of the Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, the West Indian
islands, and Brazil; the Trichomanes brevisetum, long supposed to
be peculiar to the British isles, is ascertained to grow in Madeira,
South America, &c.; and our eminent botanist, Mr. Brown, found 38
British lichens and 28 British mosses in New Holland, yet in no two
parts of the world is the vegetation more dissimilar; and almost all
the lichens brought from the southern hemisphere by Sir James
Ross, amounting to 200 species, are also inhabitants of the northern
hemisphere, and mostly European.
In islands far from continents the number of plants is small, but of
these, a large proportion occur nowhere else. In St. Helena, of 30
flower-bearing plants, 1 or 2 only are native elsewhere, but in 60
species of cryptogamous plants Dr. Hooker found only 12 peculiar to
the island.
Some plants are more particularly confined to certain regions: the
species of Cinchona which furnish the Peruvian bark grow along the
eastern declivity of the Andes, as far as 18° S. lat.; the cedar of
Lebanon is indigenous on that celebrated mountain only; and the
Disa grandiflora is limited to a very small spot on the top of the
Table-mountain at the Cape of Good Hope; but whether these are
remnants whose kindred have perished by a change of physical
circumstances, or centres only beginning to spread, it is impossible
to say.
 Plants are dispersed by currents: of 600 plants from the vicinity of
the river Zaire on the coast of Africa, 13 are found also on the
shores of Guiana and Brazil, evidently carried by the great equatorial
current to countries congenial in soil and climate. The seeds of the
Mimosa scandens, the Guilandina Bonduc, and the cashew-nut, are
wafted from the West India islands to the coasts of Scotland and
Ireland by the Gulf-stream, a climate and soil which do not suit
them, therefore they do not grow. Of all the great orders, the
species of Leguminosæ are most widely dispersed on coasts,
because their seeds are not injured by the water. Winds also waft
seeds to great distances; birds and quadrupeds, and above all man,
are active agents in dispersing plants.
 CHAPTER XXIV.

Vegetation of the Great Continent—Of the Arctic Islands—And of the

Arctic and North Temperate Regions of Europe and Asia.

The southern limit of the polar flora, on the great continent, lies
mostly within the Arctic Circle, but stretches along the tops of the
Scandinavian mountains, and reappears in the high lands of
Scotland, Cumberland, and Ireland, on the summits of the Pyrenees,
Alps, and other mountains in southern Europe, as well as on the
table-land of eastern Asia, and on the high ridges of the Himalaya.
The great European plain to the Ural Mountains, as well as the low
lands of England and Ireland, were at one period covered by a sea
full of floating ice and icebergs, which made the climate much colder
than it now is. At the beginning of that period the Scandinavian
range, the other continental mountains, and those in Britain and
Ireland, were islands of no great elevation, and were then clothed
with the Arctic flora, or a representative of it, which they still retain
now that they form the tops of the mountain-chains, and at that
time both plants and animals were conveyed from one country to
another by the floating ice. It is even probable, from the relations of
the fauna and flora, that Greenland, Iceland, and the very high
European latitudes, are the residue of a great northern land which
had sunk down at the close of the glacial period, for there were
many vicissitudes of level during that epoch. At all events, it may be
presumed that the elevation of the Arctic regions of both continents,
if not contemporaneous, was probably not far removed in time.
Similarity of circumstances had extended throughout the whole
Arctic regions, since there is a remarkable similarity and occasional
identity of species of plants and animals in the high latitudes of both
continents, which is continued along the tops of their mountain-
chains, even in the temperate zones; and there is reason to believe
that the relations between the faunas and floras of Boreal America,
Asia, and Europe, must have been established towards the close of
the glacial period.
The flora of Iceland approaches that of Britain, yet only one in
four of the British plants are known in Iceland. There are 870
species in Iceland, of which more than half are flower-bearing: this
is a greater proportion than is found in Scotland, but there are only
32 of woody texture. This flora is scattered in groups according as
the plants like a dry, marshy, volcanic, or marine soil. Many grow
close to the hot-springs: some not far from the edge of the basin of
the Great Geyser, where every other plant is petrified; and species of
Confervæ flourish in a spring said to be almost hot enough to boil an
egg. The grains cannot be cultivated on account of the severity of
the climate, but the Icelanders make bread from metur, a species of
wild corn, and also from the bulbous root of Polygonum viviparum;
their greatest delicacy is the Angelica archangelica; Iceland moss,
used in medicine, is an article of commerce. There are 583 species
in the Feroe islands, of which 270 are flowering plants: many thrive
there that cannot bear the cold of Iceland.
 ARCTIC FLORA OF THE GREAT CONTINENTS.
In the most northern parts of the Arctic lands the year is divided
into one long intensely cold night and one bright and fervid day,
which quickly brings to maturity the scanty vegetation. Within the
limit of perpetual congelation the Palmella nivalis (or red snow of
Arctic voyagers), a very minute red or orange-coloured plant, finds
nourishment in the snow itself, the first dawn of vegetable life; it is
also found colouring large patches of snow in the Alps and Pyrenees.
Lichens are the first vegetables that appear at the limits of the
snow-line, whether in high latitudes or mountain-tops, and they are
the first vegetation that takes possession of volcanic lavas and new
islands, where they prepare soil for plants of a higher order: they
grow on rocks, stones, and trees, in fact on anything that affords
them moisture. More than 2400 species are already known; no
plants are more widely diffused, and none afford a more striking
instance of the arbitrary location of species, as they are of so little
direct use to man that they could not have been disseminated by his
agency. The same kind prevail throughout the Arctic regions, and the
species common to both hemispheres are very numerous. Some
lichens produce brilliant red, orange, and brown dyes; and the tripe
de roche, a species of Gyrophora, is a miserable substitute for food,
as our intrepid countryman Sir John Franklin and his brave
companions experienced in their perilous Arctic journey.
Mosses follow lichens on newly-formed soil, and they are found
everywhere throughout the world in damp situations, but in greatest
abundance in temperate climates: 800 species are known, of which
a great part inhabit the Arctic regions, constituting a large portion of
the vegetation.
In Asiatic Siberia, north of the 60th parallel of latitude, the ground
is perpetually frozen at a very small depth below the surface: a
temperature of 70° below zero of Fahrenheit is not uncommon, and,
in some instances, the cold has been 120° below zero. Then it is
fatal to animal life, especially if accompanied by wind. In some
places trees grow and corn ripens even at 70° of north latitude; but
in the most northern parts boundless swamps, varied by lakes both
of salt and fresh water, cover wide portions of this desolate country,
which is buried under snow nine or ten months in the year. As soon
as the snow is melted by the returning sun, these extensive
morasses are covered with coarse grass and rushes, while mosses
and lichens mixed with dwarf willows clothe the plains; saline plants
abound, and whole districts produce Diotis ceratoides.
In Nova Zembla and other places in the far north, the vegetation
is so stunted that it barely covers the ground, but a much greater
variety of minute plants of considerable beauty are crowded together
there in a small space than in the alpine regions of Europe where
the same genera grow. This arises from the weakness of the
vegetation; for in the Swiss Alps the same plant frequently occupies
a large space, excluding every other, as the dark-blue gentian, the
violet-coloured pansy, the pink and yellow stone-crops. In the
remote north, on the contrary, where vitality is comparatively feeble
and the seeds do not ripen, thirty different species may be seen
crowded together in a brilliant mass, no one having strength to
overcome the rest. In such frozen climates plants may be said to live
between the air and the earth, for they scarcely rise above the soil,
and their roots creep along the surface, not having power to enter it.
All the woody plants, as the Betula nana, the reticulated willow,
Andromeda tetragona, with a few berry-bearing shrubs, trail along
the ground, never rising more than an inch or two above it. The
Salix lanata, the giant of these boreal forests, never grows more
than five inches above the surface, while its stem, 10 or 12 feet
long, lies hidden among the moss, owing shelter to its lowly
neighbour.
The chief characteristic of the vegetation of the Arctic regions is
the predominance of perennial and cryptogamous plants, and also of
the sameness of its nature; but more to the south, where night
begins to alternate with day, a difference of species appears in
longitude as well as in latitude. A beautiful flora of vivid colours
adorns these latitudes both in Europe and Asia during their brief but
bright and ardent summer, consisting of potentillas, gentians,
chickweeds, saxifrages, sedums, Ranunculi, spiræas, drabas,
artemisias, claytonias, and many more. Such is the power of the
sun, and the consequent rapidity of vegetation, that these plants
spring up, blossom, ripen their seed, and die, in six weeks: in a
lower latitude woody plants follow these, as berry-bearing shrubs,
the glaucous Kalmia, the trailing Azalea and rhododendrons. The
Siberian flora differs from that in the same European latitudes by the
North American genera Phlox, Mitella, Claytonia, and the
predominance of asters, Solidago, Spiræa, milk-vetches, wormwood,
and the saline plants goosefoot and saltworts.
Social plants abound in many parts of the northern countries, as
grass, heath, furze, and broom: the steppes are an example of this
on a very extensive scale. Both in Europe and Asia they are subject
to a rigorous winter, with deep snow and chilling blasts of wind; and
as the soil generally consists of a coating of vegetable mould over
clay, no plants with deep roots thrive upon them; hence, the steppes
are destitute of trees, and even bushes are rare except in ravines:
the grass is thin, but nourishing. Hyacinths and some other bulbs,
mignonette, asparagus, liquorice, and wormwood, grow in the
European steppes; the two last are peculiarly characteristic. The
Nelumbium speciosum grows in one spot five miles from the town of
Astracan, and nowhere else in the wide domains of Russia: the
leaves of this beautiful aquatic plant are often two feet broad, and
its rose-coloured blossoms are very fragrant. It is also native in India
and Tibet, where it is held sacred, as it was formerly in Egypt, where
it is said to be extinct: it is one of the many instances of a plant
growing in countries far apart.
Each steppe in Siberia has its own peculiar plants; the Peplis and
Camphorosma are peculiar to the steppe of the Irtish, and the
Amaryllis tatarica abounds in the meadows of eastern Siberia, where
the vegetation bears a great analogy to that of north-western
America: several genera and species are common to both.
 Half the plants found by Wormskiold in Kamtchatka are European,
with the exception of eight or ten, which are American. Few
European trees grow in Asiatic Siberia, notwithstanding the similarity
of climate, and most of them disappear towards the rivers Tobol and
Irtish.
In Lapland and in the high latitudes of Russia, large tracts are
covered with birch-trees, but the pine and fir tribe are the principal
inhabitants of the north. Prodigious forests of these are spread over
the mountains of Norway and Sweden, and in European Russia
200,000,000 acres are clothed with these Coniferæ alone, or
occasionally mixed with willows, poplars, and alders. Although soils
of pure sand and lime are absolutely barren, yet they generally
contain enough of alkali to supply the wants of the fir and pine
tribes, which require ten times less than oaks and other deciduous
trees.
The Siberian steppes are bounded on the south by great forests of
pine, birch, and willow: poplars, elms, and Tartarian maple overhang
the upper courses of the noble rivers which flow from the mountains
to the Frozen Ocean, and on the banks of the Yenessei the Pinus
Cembra, or Siberian pine, with edible fruit, grows 120 feet high. The
Altaï are covered nearly to their summit with similar forests, but on
their greatest heights the stunted larch crawls on the ground, and
the flora is like that of northern Siberia: round the lake Baikal the
Pinus Cembra grows nearly to the snow-line.
Forests of black birch are peculiar to Dahuria, where there are also
apricot and apple trees, and rhododendrons, of which a species
grows in thickets on the hills, with yellow blossoms. Here, and
everywhere else throughout this country, are found all the species of
Caragana, a genus entirely Siberian. Each terrace of the mountains,
and each steppe on the plains, has its peculiar plants, as well as
some common to all: perennial plants are more numerous than
annuals.
If temperature and climate depended upon latitude alone, all Asia
between the 50th and 30th parallels would have a mild climate; but
that is far from being the case, on account of the structure of the
continent, which consists of the highest table-lands and the lowest
plains on the globe.
The table-land of Tibet, where it is not cultivated, has the
character of great sterility, and the climate is as unpropitious as the
soil: frost, snow, and sleet begin early in September, and continue
with little interruption till May; snow, indeed, falls every month in the
year. The air is always dry, because in winter moisture falls in the
form of snow, and in summer it is quickly evaporated by the intense
heat of the sun. The thermometer sometimes rises to 144° of
Fahrenheit in the sun, and even in winter his direct rays have great
power for an hour or two, so that a variation of 100° in the
temperature of the air has occurred in twelve hours.
Notwithstanding these disadvantages, there are sheltered spots
which produce most of the European grain and fruits, though the
natural vegetation bears the Siberian character, but the species are
quite distinct. The most common indigenous plants are Tartarian
furze and various prickly shrubs resembling it, gooseberries,
currants, hyssop, dog-rose, dwarf sow-thistle, Equisetum, rhubarb,
lucern, and asafœtida, on which the flocks feed. Prangos, an
umbelliferous plant, with broad leaves and scented blossom, is
peculiar to Ladak and other parts of Tibet. Mr. Moorcroft says it is so
nutritious, that sheep fed on it become fat in twenty days. There are
three species of wheat, three of barley, and two of buckwheat,
natives of the lofty table-land, where the sarsinh is the only fruit
known to be indigenous. Owing to the rudeness of the climate trees
are not numerous, yet on the lower declivities of some mountains
there are aspens, birch, yew, ash, Tartaric oak, various pines, and
the Pavia, a species of horse-chestnut. Much of the table-land of
Tartary is occupied by the Great Gobi and other deserts of sand, with
grassy steppes near the mountains; but of the flora of these regions
we know nothing.
 FLORA OF BRITAIN AND OF MIDDLE AND
SOUTHERN EUROPE.
The British islands afford an excellent illustration of distinct
provinces of animals and plants, and also of their migration from
other centres. Professor E. Forbes has determined five botanical
districts, four of which are restricted to limited provinces, whilst the
fifth, which comprehends the great mass of British plants, is,
everywhere, either alone or mixed with the others. All of these, with
a very few doubtful exceptions, have migrated before the British
islands were separated from the continent. The first, which is of
great antiquity, includes the flora of the mountain districts of the
west and south-west of Ireland, and is similar to that in the south of
Spain, but the more delicate plants had been killed by the change of
climate after the separation of Ireland from the Asturias. The flora in
the south of England and the south-east of Ireland is different from
that in all other parts of the British islands; it is intimately related to
the vegetation of the Channel Islands and the coast of France
opposite to them, yet there are many plants in the Channel Islands
which are not indigenous in Britain. In the south-west of England,
where the chalk-plants prevail, the flora is like that on the adjacent
coast of France.
The tops of the Scottish mountains are the focus of a separate
flora, which is the same with that in the Scandinavian Alps, and is
very numerous. Scotland, Wales, and a part of Ireland received this
flora when they were groups of islands in the Glacial Sea. The rare
Eriocaulon is found in the Hebrides, in Connemara, and in Northern
America, and nowhere else. Some few individuals of this flora grow
on the summits of the mountains in Cumberland and Wales. The
fifth, of more recent origin than the alpine flora, including all the
ordinary flowering plants, as the common daisy and primrose, hairy
ladies’ smock, upright meadow crowfoot, and the lesser celandine,
together with our common trees and shrubs, has migrated from
Germany before England was separated from the continent of
Europe by the British Channel. It can be distinctly traced in its
progress across the island, but the migration was not completed till
after Ireland was separated from England by the Irish Channel, and
that is the reason why many of the ordinary English plants, animals,
and reptiles, are not found in the sister island, for the migration of
animals was simultaneous with that of plants, and took place
between the last of the tertiary periods and the historical epoch, that
of man’s creation: it was extended also over a great part of the
continent.[158]
Deciduous trees are the chief characteristic of the temperate zone
of the old continent, more especially of middle Europe; these thrive
best in soil produced by the decay of the primary and ancient
volcanic rocks, which furnish abundance of alkali. Oaks, elms, beech,
ash, larch, maple, lime, alder, and sycamore, all of which lose their
leaves in winter, are the prevailing vegetation, occasionally mixed
with fir and pine.
The undergrowth consists of wild apple, cherry, yew, holly,
hawthorn, broom, furze, wild rose, honeysuckle, clematis, &c. The
most numerous and characteristic herbaceous plants are the
umbelliferous class, as carrot and anise, the campanulas, the
Cichoraceæ, a family to which lettuce, endive, dandelion, and sow-
thistle belong. The cruciform tribe, as wallflower, stock, turnip,
cabbage, cress, &c., are so numerous, that they form a
distinguishing feature in the botany of middle Europe, to which 45
species of them belong. This family is almost confined to the
northern hemisphere, for, of 800 known species, only 100 belong to
the southern, the soil of which must contain less sulphur, which is
indispensable for these plants.
In the Pyrenees, Alps, and other high lands in Europe, the
gradation of botanical forms, from the summit to the foot of the
mountains, is similar to that which takes place from the Arctic to the
middle latitudes of Europe. The analogy, however, is true only when
viewed generally, for many local circumstances of climate and
vegetation interpose; and although the similarity of botanical forms
is very great between certain zones of altitude and parallels of
latitude, the species are, for the most part, different.
Evergreen trees and shrubs become more frequent in the
southern countries of Europe, where about a fourth part of the
ligneous vegetation never entirely lose their leaves. The flora
consists chiefly of ilex, oak, cypress, hornbeam, sweet chestnut,
laurel, laurustinus, the apple tribe, manna or the flowering ash,
carob, jujube, juniper, terebinths, lentiscus and pistaccio which yield
resin and mastic, arbutus, myrtle, jessamine (yellow and white), and
various pines, as the Pinus maritima, and Pinus Pinea, or stone pine,
which forms so picturesque a feature in the landscape of southern
Europe. The most prevalent herbaceous plants are Caryophylleæ, as
pinks, Stellaria, and arenarias, and also the labiate tripe, mint,
thyme, rosemary, lavender, with many others, all remarkable for
their aromatic properties, and their love of dry situations. Many of
the choicest plants and flowers which adorn the gardens and
grounds in northern Europe are indigenous in these warmer
countries: the anemone, tulip, mignonette, narcissus, gladiolus, iris,
asphodel, amaryllis, carnation, &c. In Spain, Portugal, Sicily, and the
other European shores of the Mediterranean, tropical families begin
to appear in the arums, plants yielding balsams, oleander, date and
palmetto palms, and grasses of the group of Panicum or millet,
Cyperaceæ or sedges, Aloe and Cactus. In this zone of transition
there are six herbaceous for one woody plant.
 FLORA OF TEMPERATE ASIA.
The vegetation of western Asia approaches nearly to that of India
at one extremity, and Europe at the other; of 281 genera of plants
which grow in Asia Minor and Persia, 109 are European. Syria and
Asia Minor form a region of transition, like the other countries on the
Mediterranean, where the plants of the temperate and tropical zones
are united. We owe many of our best fruits and sweetest flowers to
these regions. The cherry, almond, oleander, syringa, locust-tree,
&c., come from Asia Minor; the walnut, peach, melon, cucumber,
hyacinth, ranunculus, come from Persia; the date-palm, fig, olive,
mulberry, and damask rose, come from Syria; the vine and apricot
are Armenian, the latter grows also everywhere in middle and
northern Asia. The tropical forms met with in more sheltered places
are the sugar-cane, date and palmetto palms, mimosas, acacias,
Asclepias gigantea, and arborescent Apocineæ. On the mountains
south of the Black Sea, American types appear in rhododendrons
and the Azalea pontica, and herbaceous plants are numerous and
brilliant in these countries.
The table-land of Persia, though not so high as that of eastern
Asia, resembles it in the quality of the soil, which is chiefly clayey,
sandy, or saline, and the climate is very dry; hence, vegetation is
poor, and consists of thorny bushes, acacias, mimosas, tamarisk,
jujube, and asafœtida. Forests of oak cover the Lusistan mountains,
but the date-palm is the only produce of the parched shores of the
Arabian Gulf and of the oases on the Persian table-land. In the
valleys, which are beautiful, there are clumps of Oriental plane and
other trees, hawthorn, tree-roses, and many of the odoriferous
shrubs of Arabia Felix.
Afghanistan produces the seedless pomegranate, acacias, date-
palms, tamarisks, &c. The vegetation has much the same general
character as that of Egypt. The valleys of the Hindoo Coosh are
covered with clover, thyme, violets, and many odoriferous plants: the
greater part of the trees in the mountains are of European genera,
though all the species of plants, both woody and herbaceous, are
peculiar. The small leguminous plant, from whose leaves and twigs
the true indigo dye is extracted, grows spontaneously on the lower
offsets of the Hindoo Coosh. This dye has been in use in India from
the earliest times, but the plant which produces it was not known in
England till towards the end of the 16th century. Since that time it
has been cultivated in the West Indies and tropical America, though
in that country there is a species indigenous.
Hot arid deserts bound India on the west, where the stunted and
scorched vegetation consists of tamarisks, thorny acacia, deformed
Euphorbiæ, and almost leafless thorny trees, shaggy with long hair,
by which they imbibe moisture and carbon from the atmosphere.
Indian forms appear near Delhi, in the genera Flacourtia and others,
mixed with Syrian plants. East of this transition the vegetation
becomes entirely Indian, except on the higher parts of the
mountains, where European types prevail.
The Himalaya mountains form a distinct botanical district.
Immediately below the snow-line the flora is almost the same with
that on the high plains of Tartary, to which may be added
rhododendrons and andromedas, and among the herbaceous plants
primroses appear. Lower down, vast tracts are covered with
prostrate bamboos, and European forms become universal, though
the species are Indian, as gentians, plantagos, campanulas, and
gale. There are extensive forests of Coniferæ, consisting chiefly of
Pinus excelsa, Deodora, and Morinda, with many deciduous forest
and fruit trees of European genera. A transition from this flora to a
tropical vegetation takes place between the altitudes of 9000 and
5000 feet, because the rains of the monsoons begin to be felt in this
region, which unites the plants of both. Here the scarlet and other
rhododendrons grow luxuriantly; walnuts, and at least 25 species of
oak, attain a great size, one of which, the Quercus semi-carpifolia,
has a clean trunk from 80 to 100 feet high. Geraniums and labiate
plants are mixed in sheltered spots with the tropical genera of
Scitamineæ, or the ginger tribe; bignonias and balsams, and
camellias, grow on the lower part of this region.
It is remarkable that Indian, European, American, and Chinese
forms are united in this zone of transition, though the distinctness of
species still obtains: the Triosteum, a genus of the honeysuckle tribe,
is American; the Abelia, another genus of the same, together with
the Camellia and Tricyrtis, are peculiarly Chinese; the daisy and wild
thyme are European. A few of the trees and plants mentioned
descend below the altitude of 5000 feet, but they soon disappear on
the hot declivities of the mountain, where the Erythrina monosperma
and Bombax heptaphyllum are the most common trees, together
with the Millingtoniæ, a tribe of large timber-trees, met with
everywhere between the Himalaya and 10° N. lat. The Shorea
robusta, Dalbergia, and Cedrela, a genus allied to mahogany, are the
most common trees in the forests of the lower regions of these
mountains.
The temperate regions of eastern Asia, including Chinese Tartary,
China, and Japan, have a vegetation totally different from that of
any other part of the globe similarly situated, and show in a strong
point of view the distinct character which vegetation assumes in
different longitudes. In Mandshuria and the vast mountain-chains
that slope from the eastern extremity of the high Tartarian table-land
to the fertile plains in China, the forests and flora are generally of
European genera, but Asiatic species; in these countries the
buckthorn and honeysuckle tribes are so numerous as to give a
peculiar character to the vegetation. Mixed with these and with roses
are thickets of azaleas covered with blossoms of dazzling brightness
and beauty.
The transition zone in this country lies between the 35th and 27th
parallels of north latitude, in which the tropical flora is mixed with
that of the northern provinces. The prevailing plants on the Chinese
low grounds are Glycine, Hydrangea, the camphor laurel, Stillingia
sebifera, or wax-tree, Clerodendron, Hibiscus Rosa-sinensis, Thuia
orientalis, Olea fragrans, the sweet blossoms of which are mixed
with the finer teas to give them flavour; Melia azedarach, or Indian
pride, the paper mulberry, and others of the genus, and Camellia
sasanqua, which covers hills in the province of Kiong-si. The tea-
plant, and other species of Camellia, grow in many parts; the finest
tea is the produce of a low range of hills from between the 33d and
25th parallels, an offset from the great chain of Peling. Thea viridis
and bohea are possibly only varieties of the same plant; the green
tea is strong and hardy, the black a small delicate plant. The quality
of the tea depends upon the stage of growth at which it is gathered;
early leaves make the best tea, those picked late in the season give
a very coarse tea. Bohea grows in the province of Fu-kian, hyson in
Song-lo. Pekoe or pak-ho, which means white down in Chinese,
consists of the first downy sprouts or leaf-buds of three-years-old
plants. A very costly tea of this kind, never brought to Europe, and
known as the tea of the Wells of the Dragon, is used only by persons
of the highest rank in China. The true Imperial tea, also, called Flos
theæ, which is not, as was supposed, the flower-buds, but merely a
very superior quality of tea, seldom reaches Europe; that sold under
this name is really Chusan tea flavoured with blossoms of Olea
fragrans.[159] The Chinese keep tea a year before they use it,
because fresh tea has an intoxicating quality which produces
disturbance of the nervous system like the effect of Erythroxylon
Coca on the Peruvians. It is a remarkable circumstance that tea and
coffee, belonging to different families, natives of different quarters of
the globe, should possess the same principle, and it is not less
remarkable that their application to the same use should have been
so early discovered by man.
The tea-plant grows naturally in Japan and upper Assam; it is
hardy, and possesses great power of adaptation to climate. It has
lately been cultivated in Brazil, in Provence, and in Algiers, but at an
expense which renders it unprofitable. Tea comes to Europe almost
exclusively from China, but the plant thrives so well in the north-
western provinces of India that the English will ultimately compete
with the Chinese in producing it, especially for the consumption of
Tibet. Tea was first brought to Europe by the Dutch in 1610; a small
quantity came to England in 1666, and now the annual consumption
of tea in Great Britain is about fifty millions of pounds.[160]
The climate of Japan is milder than its latitude would indicate,
owing to the influence of the surrounding ocean. European forms
prevail in the high lands, as they do generally throughout the
mountains of Asia and the Indian Archipelago, with the difference of
species, as Abies, Cembra, Strobus, and Larix. The Japanese flora is
similar to the Chinese, and there are 30 American plants, besides
others of Indian and tropical climates. These islands, nevertheless,
have their own peculiar flora, distinct in its nature; as the Sophora,
Kerria, Aucuba, Mespilus, and Pyrus Japonica, Rhus vernix, Illicium
anisatum, or the anise-tree, Daphne odorata, the soap-tree, various
species of the Calycanthus tribe, the custard-apple, the Khair
mimosa, which yields the catechu, the litchi, the sweet orange, the
Cycas revoluta, a plant resembling a dwarf palm, with various other
fruits. Many tropical plants mingle with the vegetation of the
cocoanut and fan palms.
Thus, the vegetation in Japan and China is widely different from
that in the countries bordering the Mediterranean, though between
the same parallels of latitude. In the tropical regions of Asia, where
heat and moisture are excessive, the influence of latitude vanishes
altogether, and the peculiarities of the vegetation in different
longitudes become more evident.
 CHAPTER XXV.

Flora of Tropical Asia—Of the Indian Archipelago, India, and Arabia.

Tropical Asia is divided by nature into three distinct botanical

regions: the Malayan peninsula, with the Indian Archipelago; India,
south of the Himalaya, with the island of Ceylon; and the Arabian
peninsula. The two first have strong points of resemblance, though
their floras are peculiar.
FLORA OF THE INDO-CHINESE PENINSULA AND THE
INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO.
Many of the vegetable productions of the peninsula beyond the
Ganges are the same with those of India, mixed with the plants of
the Indian Archipelago, so that this country is a region of transition,
though it has a splendid vegetation of innumerable native
productions, dyes of the most vivid hues, spices, medicinal plants,
and many with the sweetest perfume. The soil in many places yields
three crops in the year; the fruits of India, and most of those of
China, come to perfection in the low lands. The arang forms an
exception to the extreme beauty of the multitude of palms which
adorn the Malayan peninsula; though it is eminently characteristic of
that country, it is an ugly plant, covered with black fibres like
horsehair, sufficiently strong to make cordage. It is cultivated for the
sugar and wine made from its juice. Teak is plentiful; almost all that
is used in Bengal comes from the Birman empire, though it is less
durable than that of the Malabar coast. The Hopea odorata is so
large that a canoe is made of a single trunk; the Gordonia
integrifolia is held in such veneration that every Birman house has a
beam of it.
There are seven species of native oak in the forests; the Mimosa
catechu, which furnishes the terra japonica used in medicine; the
trees which produce varnish and stick-lac; the Glyphyria nitida, a
myrtle, the leaves of which are used as tea in Bencoolen, called by
the natives the tree of long life. The coasts are wooded by the
Heritiera robusta, a large tree which thrives within reach of the tide;
bamboos with stems a foot and a half in diameter grow in dense
thickets in the low lands. The Palmyra palm and the Borassus
flabelliformis grow in extensive groves in the valley of the Irawaddy:
it is a magnificent tree, often 100 feet high, remarkable for its
gigantic leaves, one of which would shelter 12 men.
 The anomalous trees the Zamias and Cycadeæ, somewhat like a
palm with large pinnated leaves, but of a different family, are found
here and in tropical India; those in America are of a different
species. Orchideæ and tree-ferns are innumerable in the woody
districts of the peninsula.
The vegetation of the Indian Archipelago is gorgeous beyond
description; although in many instances it bears a strong analogy to
that of the Malayan peninsula, tropical India, and Ceylon, still it is in
an eminent degree peculiar. The height of the mountains causes
variety in the temperature sufficient to admit of the growth of
dammar pines, oaks, rhododendrons, magnolias, valerians,
honeysuckles, bilberries, gentians, oleasters, and other European
orders of woody and herbaceous plants; yet there is not one species
in common.
Palm-trees are more abundant in these islands than in any other
part of the world, especially in the Sunda group, the origin of many,
a few of which are now widely spread over the eastern countries.
Three species of Areca, attaining a height of from 40 to 50 and more
feet, are cultivated in all the hot parts of India; and Caryota Urens,
the fruit of which is acrid, yet it yields wine and sugar, are all native.
The attempt is vain to specify the multitudes of these graceful trees
which form so characteristic a feature in the vegetation of these
tropical islands, where a rich moist soil with intense heat brings
them to such perfection. It has been observed that
monocotyledonous plants are generally more plentiful in islands than
on continents, and also that they extend farther into the southern
than into the northern hemisphere, which may be accounted for by
the moist and mild climate of the former.
Jungle and dense pestilential woods entirely cover the smaller
islands and the plains of the larger; the coasts are lined with thickets
of mangroves, a matted vegetation of forest-trees, bamboos, and
coarse grass, entwined with climbing and creeping plants, and
overgrown by orchideous parasites in myriads; and the gutta-percha
is also a native of these alluvial tracts. The forest-trees of the Indian
Archipelago are almost unknown; teak and many of the continental
trees grow there, but the greater number are peculiarly their own.
The naturalist Rumphius had a cabinet inlaid with 400 kinds of
wood, the produce of Amboyna and the Molucca islands.
Sumatra, Java, and the adjacent islands, are the region of the
Dryobalanops camphora, in the stems of which solid lumps of a
remarkable and costly kind of camphor are found. All the trees of
that order, and of several others, are peculiar to these islands, and
78 species of trees and shrubs of the Melastomaceous tribe grow
there and in continental India. There are thickets of the sword-
leaved vaquois-tree and of the Pandanus or screw-pine, a plant
resembling the anana, with a blossom like that of a bulrush, very
odoriferous, and in some species edible.
This is the region of spices, which are very limited in their
distribution: the Myristica moschata (the nutmeg and mace-plant) is
confined to the Banda Islands, but it is said to have been discovered
lately in New Guinea. The Amboyna and the Molucca groups are the
focus of the Caryophyllus aromaticus, a myrtle, the buds of which
are known as cloves. Various species of cinnamon and cassia, both
of the laurel tribe, together with varieties of pepper, different from
those in India and Ceylon, grow in this archipelago. All the pepper-
plants require great heat: they are rare in Africa, but plentiful in
America and the Indian Archipelago; the common black pepper is
peculiar to the hottest parts of Asia, extending only a few degrees
on each side of the equator. In 1842 more than 30,000,000 pounds
weight of pepper were produced in Sumatra alone. Some of the
most excellent fruits are indigenous here only, as the dourio, the
ayer ayer, Loquat, the choapa of Molucca, peculiar kinds of orange,
lemon, and citron, with others known only by name elsewhere.
Those common to the continent of India are the jambrose, rose-
apple, jack, various species of bread-fruit, mango, mangosteen, and
the banana, which is luxuriant.
Here the nettle tribe assume the most pernicious character, and
the upas-tree of Java, one of the most deadly vegetable poisons;
and even the plants resembling our common nettle are so acrid that
the sting of one in Java occasions not only pain but illness, which
lasts for days. A nettle in the island of Timor, called by the natives
the “Devil’s leaf,” is so poisonous that it produces long illness and
even death. The chelik, a shrub growing in the dense forests,
produces a poison even more deadly than the upas. Some of the fig
genus, which belongs also to the natural order of nettles, have acrid
juices. Trees of the cashew tribe have a milky sap: the fine japan
lacquer is made from the juice of the Stagmaria verniciflua.
Barringtonia and palms are very splendid here, the latter generally of
peculiar species and limited in their distribution, as the Nipa. No
country is richer in club-mosses and orchideous plants, which
overrun the trees in thousands in the deep dark mountain-forests,
choked by huge creeping plants, an undergrowth of gigantic grasses,
through which not a ray of light penetrates.
Sir Stamford Raffles describes the vegetation of Java as “fearful.”
In these forests the air is heavy, charged with dank and deadly
vapours, never agitated by a breath of wind; the soil, of the deepest
black vegetable mould, always moist and clammy, stimulated by the
fervid heat of a tropical sun, produces trees whose stems are of a
spongy texture from their rapid growth, loaded with parasites,
particularly the orchideous tribe, of which no less than 300 species
are peculiar to that island. Tree-ferns are in the proportion of one to
twenty of the other plants, and form a large portion of the
vegetation of Java and all these islands; and there are above 200
tropical species of club-mosses growing to the length of 3 feet,
whereas in cold countries they creep on the ground.
The Rafflesias, of which there are four species, are the most
singular productions of this archipelago. The most extraordinary one
is common to Java and Sumatra, where it was discovered by Dr.
Arnold, and therefore is called Rafflesia Arnoldi. It is a parasitical
plant, with buds the size of an ordinary cabbage, and the flower,
which smells of carrion, is of a brick-red colour, 31⁄2 feet in diameter:
that found by Mr. Arnold weighed 15 pounds, and the cup in its
centre could contain 12 pints of liquid.
According to Sir Stamford Raffles there are six distinct climates in
Java, from the top of the mountains to the sea, each having an
extensive indigenous vegetation. No other country can show an
equal abundance and variety of native fruit and esculent vegetables.
There are 100 varieties of rice, and of fragrant flowers, shrubs, and
ornamental trees the number is infinite. Abundant as the Orchideæ
are in Java, Ceylon, and the Birmese empire, these countries
possess very few that are common to them all, so local is their
distribution. Ferns are more plentiful in this archipelago than
elsewhere: tree-ferns are found chiefly between or near the tropics,
in airless damp places.
 INDIAN FLORA.
The plains of Hindostan are so completely sheltered from the
Siberian blasts by the high table-lands of Tartary and the Himalaya
mountains, that the vegetation at the foot of that range already
assumes a tropical character. In the jungles and lower ridges of the
fertile valley of Nepal, and on the dark and airless recesses of the
Silhet forests, arborescent ferns and orchideous plants are found in
profusion, scarcely surpassed even in the islands of the Indian
Archipelago—indeed the marshy Tariyane is full of them. The lowest
ranges of the Himalaya, the pestilential swamp of the Tariyane, the
alluvial ridges of the hills that bound it on the south, and many parts
of the plains of the Ganges, are covered with primeval forests, which
produce whole orders of large timber-trees, frequently overrun with
parasitical loranths.
The native fruits of India are many; the orange tribe is almost all
of Indian origin, though some of the species are now widely spread
over the warmer parts of the other continents and the more distant
countries of Asia. Two or three species are peculiar to Madagascar;
one is found in the forests of the Essequibo, and another in Brazil,
which are the only exceptions known. The Limonia laureola grows on
the tops of the high Asiatic mountains, which are covered with snow
several months in the year; and the wampee, a fruit much esteemed
in China and the Indian Archipelago, is produced by a species of this
order. The vine grows wild in the forests; plantain, banana,
jambrose, guava, mango, mangosteen, date, areca, palmyra, cocoa-
nut, and gameto-palms are all Indian, also the gourd family. The
Scitamineæ, or ginger tribe, are so numerous, that they form a
distinguishing and beautiful feature of Indian botany: they produce
ginger, cardamoms, and turmeric. The flowers peculiar to India are
brilliant in colours, but generally without odour, except the rose and
some jessamines.
 The greater part of the trees and plants mentioned belong also to
tropical India, where vegetation is still more luxuriant; a large
portion of that magnificent country, containing 1,000,000 square
miles, has been cultivated time immemorial, although vast tracts still
remain in a state of nature. Those extensive mountain-chains which
traverse and surround the Deccan are rich in primeval forests of
stupendous growth with dense underwood. The most remarkable of
these trees are the Indian cotton-tree and the Dombeya, which is of
the same order; that which produces the Trincomalee wood, used
for building boats at Madras; the red-wood tree, peculiar to the
Coromandel coast, the satin-wood, the superb Butea frondosa, the
agallochum tribe, which yields the odorous wood of aloes mentioned
in Scripture, the Melaleuca leucadendron and the Melaleuca
cajepute, from which the oil is prepared. The dragon’s-blood tree is
a native of India, though not exclusively, as some of the best
specimens grow in Madagascar, where it is planted for hedges.
Sanders-wood and dragon’s-blood are obtained from the Pterocarpus
sandalinus and Draco; the sappan-tree gives a purple dye: these are
all of the leguminous or bean tribe, of which there are 452 Indian
species: ebony grows in these tropical regions, in Mauritius, and the
south coast of Africa.
Some of the fig tribe are among the most remarkable vegetable
productions of India for gigantic size and peculiarity of form, which
renders them valuable in a hot climate from the shade which their
broad-spreading tops afford. Some throw off shoots from their
branches, which take root on reaching the ground, and, after
increasing in girth with wonderful rapidity, produce branches which
also descend to form new roots, and this process is continued till a
forest is formed round the parent tree. Mr. Reinwardt saw in the
island of Simao a large wood of the Ficus Benjamina which sprang
from one stem. The Ficus Indica, or banyan-tree, is another instance
of this wide-spreading growth; it is found in the islands, but is in
greatest perfection around the villages in the Circar mountains:
there is a tree of it on the banks of the Nerbudda, in the province of
Guzerat, with 350 main stems, occupying an area of 2000 feet in
circumference, independent of its branches, which extend much
farther. The camphor genus is mostly Indian, as well as many more
of the laurel tribe of great size. The banana is the most generally
useful tree in this country; its fruit is food, its leaves are applied to
many domestic purposes, and flax fit for making muslin is obtained
from its stem. Cotton is a hairy covering of the seeds of several
species of the mallow tribe which grow spontaneously in tropical
Asia, Africa, and America; it is, however, cultivated in many countries
beyond these limits. That grown in China and the United States of
America is an herbaceous annual from 18 inches to 2 feet high:
there are also cotton-trees, native and cultivated, in India, China,
Africa, and America. Herodotus mentions cotton garments 445 years
before the Christian era, and the Mexicans manufactured cotton
cloth before the discovery of America.
Palms, the most stately and graceful of the vegetable productions
of tropical regions, are abundant in India, in forests, in groups, and
in single trees. Some species grow at the limit of perpetual snow,
some 900 feet above the sea, others in valleys and on the shores of
the continent and islands. They decrease in number and variety as
the latitude increases, and terminate at Nice, in 44° N. lat., their
limit in the great continent. The leaves of some are of gigantic size,
and all are beautiful, varying in height from the slender Calamus
rotang, 130 feet high, to the Chamærops humilis, not more than 15
or 20. Different species yield wine, oil, wax, flour, sugar, thread, and
rope; weapons and utensils are made of their stems and leaves;
they serve for the construction of houses; the cocoa-nut palm gives
food and drink; sago is made from all except the Areca catechu, the
fruit of which, the betel-nut, is used by the natives for its
intoxicating quality.
Though palms in general are very limited in their distribution, a
few species are very widely spread; for example, the cocoa-nut
palm, which grows spontaneously on the southern coasts of the
Indo-Chinese peninsula and the Sunda Islands, from whence it has
been carried to all the intertropical regions of the globe, where it has
been extensively cultivated from its usefulness. So luxuriant is its
growth in Ceylon, that in one year nearly 3,000,000 of nuts were
exported; in parts of that island, on the Malabar and Coromandel
coasts, and in some districts in Bengal, the Borassus flabelliformis
supplies its place.
The island of Ceylon, which may be regarded as the southernmost
extremity of the Indian peninsula, is very mountainous, and rivals
the islands of the Indian Archipelago in luxuriance of vegetable
productions, and, in some respects, bears a strong resemblance to
them. The laurel, the bark of which is cinnamon, is indigenous, and
one of the principal sources of the revenue of Ceylon. The taleput
leaves of a species of palm are of such enormous size, that they are
applied to many uses by the Cingalese; in ancient times strips of the
leaf were written upon with a sharp style, and served as books. The
sandalwood of Ceylon is of a different species from that of the South
Sea islands, and its perfume more esteemed. Indigo is indigenous,
and so is the choya, whose roots give a scarlet dye. The mountains
produce a great variety of beautiful woods used in cabinet-work. It is
a remarkable circumstance in the distribution of plants, that the
orchideæ are very numerous in this island.
 ARABIAN VEGETATION.
The third division of the tropical flora of Asia is the Arabian, which
differs widely from the other two, and is chiefly marked by trees
yielding balsams. Oceans of barren sand extend to the south, from
Syria through the greater part of Arabia, varied only by occasional
oases in those spots where a spring of water has reached the
surface; there the prevalent vegetation consists of the grasses,
Holcus and Panicum dicotomum growing under the shade of the
date-palm; mimosas and stunted prickly bushes appear here and
there in the sand. There is verdure on the mountains, and along
some of the coasts, especially in the province of Yemen, which has a
flora of its own. The Keura odorifera, a superb tree, with agreeable
perfume, eight species of figs, the three species of Amyris—
gileadensis, or balm of Gilead, opobalsamum also yielding balsam,
and the kataf, from which myrrh is supposed to come—are peculiar
to Arabia. Frankincense is said to be the produce of the Boswellia
serrata; and there are many species of Acacia, among others the
Acacia arabica, which produces gum arabic. The arak and tamarind
trees connect the botany of Arabia with that of the West Indies,
while it is connected with that of the Cape of Good Hope by
Stapelias, mesembryanthemums, and liliaceous flowers. The
character of Arabian vegetation, like that of other dry hot climates,
consists in its odoriferous plants and flowers.
Arabia produces coffee, which, however, is not indigenous, but is
supposed to have come from the table-land of Ethiopia, and to have
its name from the province of Kaffa, where it forms dense forests. It
was introduced into Arabia in the end of the fifteenth century, and
grows luxuriantly in Arabia Felix, where the coffee is of the highest
flavour. Most of that now used is the progeny of plants raised from
seed and brought from Mocha to the Botanic Garden at Amsterdam
in 1690, by Van Hoorn, Governor of Batavia. A plant was sent to
Louis XIV., in 1714, by the magistrates of Amsterdam—it was from
this plant that the first coffee-plants were introduced in 1717 into
the West India islands. A year afterwards the Dutch introduced
coffee-trees into Surinam, from whence they spread rapidly over the
warm parts of America and the West India islands. Many thousands
of people are now employed in its cultivation there, in Demerara,
Java, Manilla, the isle of Bourbon, and other places. More than
3,000,000 pounds of coffee-beans are produced, and 100,000 tons
of shipping are annually employed in its transport across the Indian
and Atlantic Oceans. Coffee was not known till many centuries after
the introduction of sugar. The first coffee-house was opened in
London in 1652, and the first in France, at Marseilles, in 1671.
 CHAPTER XXVI.

African Flora—Flora of Australia, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and of

Polynesia.

The northern coast of Africa, and the range of the Atlas generally,
may be regarded as a zone of transition, where the plants of
southern Europe are mingled with those peculiar to the country; half
the plants of northern Africa are also found in the other countries on
the shores of the Mediterranean. Of 60 trees and 248 shrubs which
grow there, 100 only are peculiar to Africa, and about 18 of these
belong to its tropical flora. There are about six times as many
herbaceous plants as there are trees and shrubs; and in the Atlas
mountains, as in other chains, the perennial plants are much more
numerous than annuals. Evergreens predominate, and are the same
as those on the other shores of the Mediterranean. The
pomegranite, the locust-tree, the oleander, and the palmetto
abound; and the cistus tribe give a distinct character to the flora.
The sandarach, or Thuia articulata, peculiar to the northern side of
the Atlas mountains and to Cyrenaica, yields close-grained hard
timber, used for the ceiling of mosques, and is supposed to be the
shittim-wood of Scripture. The Atlas produces seven or eight species
of oak, various pines, especially the Pinus maritima, and forests of
the Aleppo pine in Algiers. The sweet-scented arborescent heath and
Erica scoparia are native here, also in the Canary Islands and the
Azores, where the tribe of house-leeks characterizes the botany.
There are 534 phanerogamous plants, or such as have the parts of
fructification evident, in the Canary Islands; of these, 310 are
indigenous, the rest African: the Pinus canariensis is peculiar, and
also the Dracænæ, which grow in perfection here. The stem of the
Dracæna Draco, of the Villa Oratava in Teneriffe, measures 46 feet in
circumference at the base of the tree, which is 75 feet high. It is
known to have been an object of great antiquity in the year 1402,
and is still alive, bearing blossoms and fruit. If it be not an instance
of the partial location of plants, there must have been intercourse
between India and the Canary Islands in very ancient times.
Plants with bluish-green succulent leaves are characteristic of
tropical Africa and its islands; and though the group of the Canaries
has plants in common with Spain, Portugal, Africa, and the Azores,
yet there are many species, and even genera, which are found in
them only; and the height of the mountains causes much variety in
the vegetation.
On the continent, south of the Atlas, a great change of soil and
climate takes place; the drought on the borders of the desert is so
excessive that no trees can resist it, rain hardly ever falls, and the
scorching blasts from the south speedily dry up any moisture that
may exist; yet, in consequence of what descends from the
mountains, the date-palm forms large forests along their base, which
supply the inhabitants with food, and give shelter to crops which
could not otherwise grow. The date-palm, each tree of which yields
from 150 to 160 pounds weight of fruit, grows naturally, and is also
cultivated, through northern Africa. It has been carried to the Canary
Islands, Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and to Nice, the most northern limit
of the palm-tribe. Stunted plants are the only produce of the desert,
yet large tracts are covered with the Pennisetum dichotomum, a
harsh prickly grass, which, together with the Alhagi maurorum, is
the food of camels.
The plants peculiar to Egypt are acacias, mimosas, cassias,
tamarisks, the Nymphæa Lotus, the blue Lotus, the Papyrus, from
which probably the first substance used for writing upon was made,
and has left its name to that we now use; also the Zizyphus or jujub,
various mesembryanthemums, and most of the plants of Barbary
grow here. The date-palm is not found higher on the Nile than
Thebes, where it gives place to the doom-palm or Cucifera Thebaica,
peculiar to this district, and singular as being the only palm that has
a branched stem.
The eastern side of equatorial Africa is less known than the
western, but the floras of the two countries, under the same
latitude, have little affinity: on the eastern side the Rubiaceæ, the
Euphorbiæ, a race peculiarly African, and the Malvaceæ, are most
frequent. The genus Danais of the coffee tribe distinguishes the
vegetation of Abyssinia, also the Dombeya, a species of vine, various
jessamines, a beautiful species of honeysuckle; and Bruce says a
caper-tree grows to the height of the elm, with white blossoms, and
fruit as large as a peach. The daroo, or Ficus sycomorus, and the
arak-tree, are native. The kollquall, or Euphorbia antiquorum, grows
40 feet high on the plain of Baharnagach, in the form of an elegant
branched candelabrum, covered with scented fruit. The kantuffa or
thornby shrub, is so great a nuisance from its spines, that even
animals avoid it. The Erythrina Abyssinica bears a poisonous red
bean with a black spot, used by the shangalla and other tribes for
ages as a weight for gold, and by the women as necklaces. Mr.
Rochet has lately brought some seeds of new grain from Shoa, that
are likely to be a valuable addition to European cerealia.
The vegetation of tropical Africa on the west is known only along
the coast, where some affinity with that of India may be observed. It
consists of 573 species of flower-bearing plants, and is distinguished
by a remarkable uniformity, not only in orders and genera, but even
in species, from the 16th degree of N. lat. to the river Congo in 6° S.
lat. The most prevalent are the grasses and bean tribes, the
Cyperaceæ Rubiaceæ, and the Compositæ. The Adansonia, or
baobab of Senegal, is one of the most extraordinary vegetable
productions; the stem is sometimes 34 feet in diameter, though the
tree is rarely more than 50 or 60 feet high; it covers the sandy plains
so entirely with its umbrella-shaped top, that a forest of these trees
presents a compact surface, which at some distance seems to be a
green field. Cape Verde has its name from the numbers that conceal
the barren soil under their spreading tops; some of them are very
old, and, with the dragon-tree at Teneriffe, are supposed to be the
most ancient vegetable inhabitants of the earth. The Pandanus
candelabrum, instead of growing crowded together in masses like
the baobab, stands solitary on the equatorial plains, with its lofty
forked branches ending in tufts of long stiff leaves. Numerous
sedges, of which the Papyrus is the most remarkable, give a
character to this region, and cover boundless plains, waving in the
wind like corn-fields, while other places are overgrown by forests of
gigantic grasses with branching stems.
A rich vegetation, consisting of impenetrable thickets of mangrove,
the poisonous manchineel, and many large trees, cover the deltas of
the rivers, and even grow so far into the water, that their trunks are
coated with shell-fish; but the pestilential exhalations render it
almost certain death to botanize in this luxuriance of nature.
Various kinds of the soap or sapodilla trees are peculiar to Africa;
the butter-tree of the enterprising but unfortunate Mungo Park, the
star-apple, the cream-fruit, the custard-apple, and the water-vine,
are plentiful in Senegal and Sierra Leone. The ibraculea is peculiarly
African; its seeds are used to sweeten brackish water. The safu and
bread-fruit of Polynesia are represented here by the musanga, a
large tree of the nettle tribe, the fruit of which has the flavour of the
hazel-nut. A few palms have very local habitations, as the Elais
Guineensis, or palm-oil plant, found only on that coast. That graceful
tribe is less varied in species in equatorial Africa than in the other
continents. It appears that a great part of the flora of this portion of
Africa is of foreign origin.
The flora of south Africa differs entirely from that of the northern
and tropical zones, and as widely from that of every other country,
with the exception of Australia and some parts of Chile. The soil of
the table-land at the Cape of Good Hope, stretching to an unknown
distance, and of the Karoo plains and valleys between the
mountains, is sometimes gravelly, but more frequently is composed
of sand and clay; in summer it is dry and parched, and most of its
rivers are dried up; it bears but a few stunted shrubs, some
succulent plants and mimosas, along the margin of the river-courses.
The sudden effect of rain on the parched ground is like magic: it is
recalled to life, and in a short time is decked with a beautiful and
peculiar vegetation, comprehending, more than any other country,
numerous and distinctly-defined foci of genera and species.
Twelve thousand species of plants have been collected in the
colony of the Cape in an extent of country about equal to Germany.
Of these, heaths and proteas are two very conspicuous tribes; there
are 300 species of the former, and 200 of the latter, both of which
have nearly the same limited range, though Mr. Bunbury found two
heaths, and the Protea cynaroides, the most splendid of the family
(bearing a flower the size of a man’s hat), on the hills round
Graham’s Town, in the eastern part of the colony. These two tribes
of plants are so limited that there is not one of either to be seen
north of the mountains which bound the Great Karoo, and by much
the greatest number of them grew within 100 miles of Cape Town;
indeed at the distance of only 40 miles the prevailing Proteaceæ are
different from those at the Cape. The Leucadendron argenteum, or
silver-tree, which forms groves at the back of the table-mountain, is
confined to the peninsula of the Cape. The beautiful Disa grandiflora
is found only in one particular place on the top of the table-
mountain.
The dry sand of the west coast, and the country northward
through many degrees of latitude, is the native habitation of
Stapelias, succulent plants with square leafless stems, and flowers
like star-fish, with the smell of carrion. A great portion of the eastern
frontier of the Cape colony and the adjacent districts is covered with
extensive thickets of a strong succulent and thorny vegetation,
called by the natives the bush: similar thickets occur again far to the
west, on the banks of the river Gauritz. The most common plants of
the bush are aloes of many species, all exceedingly fleshy and some
beautiful: the great red-flowering arborescent aloe, and some
others, make a conspicuous figure in the eastern part of the colony.
Other characteristic plants of the eastern districts are the spek-
boem, or Portulacaria afra, Schotia speciosa, and the great succulent
euphorbias, which grow into real trees 40 feet high, branching like a
candelabrum, entirely leafless, prickly, and with a very acrid juice.
The Euphorbia meloformis, three feet in diameter, lies on the
ground, to which it is attached by slender fibrous roots, and is
confined to the mountains of Graaf Reynet. Euphorbias, in the Old
World, correspond with the Cactus tribe, which belong exclusively to
the New. The Zamia, a singular plant, having the appearance of a
dwarf-palm, without any real similarity of structure, belongs to the
eastern districts, especially to the great tract of bush on the Caffir
frontier.
Various species of Acacia are indigenous and much circumscribed
in their location: the Acacia horrida, or the white-thorned acacia, is
very common in the eastern districts and in Caffirland. The Acacia
cafra is strictly eastern, growing along the margins of rivers, to
which it is a great ornament. The Acacia detinens, or hook-thorn, is
almost peculiar to Zand valley.
It appears, from the instances mentioned, that the vegetation in
the eastern districts of the colony differs from that on the western,
yet many plants are generally diffused of orders and genera found
only in this part of Africa:—Nearly all the 300 species of the fleshy
succulent tribe of Mesembryanthemum, or Hottentot’s fig; a great
many beautiful species of the Oxalis, or wood-sorrel-tribe; every
species of Gladiolus, with the exception of that in the cornfields in
Italy and France; ixias innumerable, one with petals of apple-green
colour; geraniums, especially the genus Pelargonium, or stork’s bill,
almost peculiar to this locality; many varieties of Gnaphalium and
Xeranthemum; the brilliant Strelitzia; 133 species of the house-leek
tribe, all fleshy, attached to the soil by a strong wiry root, and
nourished more or less from the atmosphere: Diosmas are widely
scattered in great variety; shrubby Boragineæ with flowers of vivid
colours, and Orchideæ with large and showy blossoms. The
leguminous plants and Cruciferæ of the Cape are peculiar; indeed all
the vegetation has a distinct character, and both genera and species
are confined within narrower limits than anywhere else, without any
apparent cause to account for a dispersion so arbitrary.