CHAPTER XX THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF VEGETABLES. "He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth."-Ps. civ. 14. 596. THE greater part of the land surface is clothed with vegetation, the different species of which are not scattered promiscuously, but were originally placed in those regions to which they were adapted. The mountains, the valleys, the plains, the ocean beds, each have their peculiar kinds; some requiring the hottest climate, some a more temperate air, and others thriving only in the midst of ice and snow. Situations never penetrated by the solar rays, as the dark vaults of caverns and the walls of mines, have their peculiar vegetation. There is only one state which seems fatal to the existence of vegetable life - it is, the entire absence of moisture. 597. The most important species of plants are those which furnish food for man and the domestic animals - the grains, fruits, roots, and grasses. But all plants have their uses, for nothing is created by Divine Wisdom without a purpose. 598. There are vast districts of the earth which have not yet been explored by the botanist, as the interior of Africa and Australia, with sections of America, Asia, and Oceanica, so that it is impossible to state the whole number of species in the vegetable kingdom. At the present time, however, the catalogue embraces 89,000 species. 599. The vegetable kingdom is divided into three great classes, which differ materially in their structure. Cryptog': amous plants those which have no flowers, properly so called. They are the mosses, li'chens, fun'ģi, ferns, and algæ. Endogenous plants—those which have stems in 596. Of the land with regard to vegetation. Diversities of place and temperature sustaining vegetation. The only condition fatal to vegetable life. 597. Most important species of plants. Nothing in nature without a purpose. -598. Unexplored districts. Present number of known species of plants. 599. Three principal classes of plants-cryptogamous plants, endogenous creasing from within. They are the numerous grasses, lilies, and the pälm family. Exogenous plants-those which have stems growing by additions from without. This is the most perfect, beautiful, and numerous class, embracing the forest trees, most flowering shrubs, and herbs. 600. The first class affords the most numerous examples of wide diffusion. Some species of the second class are also widely distributed. But only in very few instances are the same species of ex'ogens met with in regions far apart from each other. In passing from one country to another, we generally find a new flō'ra. All the plants of all kinds belonging to a country constitute the flō'ra of that country. A plant is considered as belonging to those regions only in which it will flourish and bear fruit with the natural temperature of the seasons. 601. In equatorial and tropical countries, where a sufficient supply of moisture combines with the influence of light and heat, we find vegetation in all its magnitude and glory. The lower orders, mosses, fun'ģi, and confer'væ, are very rare. The ferns grow as trees. Reeds ascend to the height of a hundred feet, and rigid grasses rise to forty feet. The forests are composed of majestic leafy evergreen trees, bearing brilliant blossoms, their colors finely contrasting, scarcely any two standing together being of the same species. Enormous creepers climb their trunks, parasit'ical plants hang in festoons from branch to branch, and increase the floral decoration with scarlet, purple, blue, rose, and golden hues. 602. Of plants used by man for food, or as luxuries, or for medicinal purposes, occurring in this region, rice, banä'nas, dates, co'coa, cacao, breadfruit, coffee, tea, sugar, vanilla, cinchō'na, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmegs, are either characteristic of it as being principally cultivated within its limits, or entirely confined to them. 603. RICE, the chief food of perhaps a third of the human race, is cultivated beyond the tropics, but principally within them, and only where there is a plentiful supply of water. It has never been found wild; its native country is unknown, but probably is Southern Asia. 604. BANANAS, or plantains, are cultivated in intertropical Asia, Africa, and America. The banana is not known in an uncultivated state. Its produce is enormous, estimated to be as 133 to 1 of wheat, or as 44 to 1 of the potato. and exogenous. 600. Their diffusion. Definition of flora.-601. Vegetation in equatorial and tropical countries. Evergreens. Creepers. Parasites. 602. Tropical plants used for food, luxuries, or medicines.-603. Of rice. – 605. DATES and Cocoa belong to the family of palms, which are remarkable for their elegant forms.and importance to man. They impress upon the vegetation of tropical countries its peculiar cast or expression. The date palm is a native of Northern Africa, and is so abundant between the Barbary States and the Sahä'ra, that the district has been named the Land of Dates. It skirts the margin of the desert in all its bendings, from the shores of the Atlantic to the confines of Persia, and is the only vegetable affording subsistence to man that can grow in such an arid situation. annual produce of a single tree is from 150 to 260 pounds weight of fruit. The co'coa palm furnishes annually about a hundred cocoa nuts. It is spread throughout the torrid zone, but is most abundant in the East India Islands. The 606. CACAO, from the seeds of which chocolate is prepared, grows wild in Central America, and is extensively cultivated in Mexico, Guatemä'la, and on the coast of Cumanä'. 607. BREADFRUIT tree, a native of the South Sea Islands and East Indies, grows also in Southern Asia, and has been introduced into the tropical parts of America. The fruit is not equal to the banä'na as an article of food. 608. COFFEE. The bush is probably a native of the Ethiopian highlands, from whence it was taken in the fifteenth century to the highlands of Yê'men, the southern part of Arabia, of which Mo'cha is the chief seaport. It has been introduced and is now extensively cultivated in British India, Ceylōn', Jä'va, Mauri'tius, Brazîl', and the West Indies, but the quality is inferior to that of Mo'cha. Coffee was first introduced into Věn'ice in 1615, into England in 1652, and into France in 1658. 609. TEA. The plant is indigenous in China, Japǎn', and Upper Assăm'. In the latter country it has recently been found in a wild state, and is in process of extensive cultivation there. Tea was first introduced into Europe by the Dutch in 1666. 610. SUGAR CANE occurs to some extent without the tropics, having been cultivated centuries ago in Europe; but it properly belongs to the torrid zone, and has for its principal districts the Southern United States, the West Indies, Venezuela, Brazîl', Mauri'tius, British India, China, the Sun'da and Philip'pine Islands. The plant was found wild in several 604. Bananas.-605. Dates and cocoa. Date palm. Cocoa palm.— 606. Cacas.-607 Breadfruit tree.-608. Coffee. 609. Tea.-610. Sugar cane. - parts of America on the discovery of the continent, and occurs wild on many of the islands in the Pacific. 611. VANILLA, the fruit of which forms the well-known aromatic of that name, grows wild, principally in Mexico, in hot, damp, shady places. 612. CINCHONA, the Peruvian bark, a forest tree, of which there are several species, furnishes the valuable medicine of that name. It is exclusively confined to South America, and grows chiefly on the Andes of Lo'ja and Venezuē'la. 613. PEPPER belongs exclusively to the Malabar coast, where it has been found wild. It is cultivated in Sumä'tra, which produces the greatest quantity, Borneo, Malay peninsula, and Siăm. Other species occur in tropical America. 614. CINNAMON, a small tree yielding the aromatic bark, is found native only in the Island of Ceylōn', but another species occurs in In'do-China. 615. CLOVE, an evergreen tree of small size, the dried flower buds of which form the celebrated aromatic, grows naturally in the Moluc'cas, from whence it has been taken to other tropical districts. The Island of Amboy'na is the principal seat of its cultivation, where the temperature is never below 72°; the mean annual temperature being 82°. 616. NUTMEG grows naturally in several islands of the East Indies, but is chiefly cultivated in the Bän'da Isles. 617. In passing from the hot to temperate climates vegetation assumes a marked change in its aspect. Green meadows, abounding with tender herbs, take the place of the tall, rigid grasses which form the impenetrable jungle; and instead of forests composed of lofty evergreen trees, we find woods which cast their leaves in winter, and become torpid in the colder season. They are the oak, ash, elm, maple, beech, lime, âlder, birch, and syc'amore. The cultivation of the vine becomes characteristic with the perfection of the ce'real grasses and a larger proportion of herbaceous annuals and cryptogăm'ic plants. 618. Farther from the equator magnificent forests of the fir and pine tribes prevail, as in the central parts of Rús'sia, on the southern shores of the Bâl'tic, in Scandinavia, and in North America. But some of the cé'reals are no longer cultivated. Several of the timber trees common to the tem 611. Vanilla.-612. Cinchona.-613. Pepper. -614. Cinnamon.-615. Clove 616. Nutmeg.-617. Aspect of vegetation in passing from hot to temperate climates. Particular kinds of trees. The vine. Cereals. Herbaceous and cryptogamic plants.-618. The fir and pine tribes. Of some cereals. Timber Woods in the higher latitudes. Northern limits of wood. Southern trees. perate zone do not reach its northern limits. All woody vegetation gradually disappears as the higher latitudes are attained. The northern limit of wood begins in North America, at Norton's Sound, and rises to 68°; then descending, it crosses Great Bear Lake and Hudson Bay, leaving Labrador' at about 56°; thence bending N. E., it crosses the south of Greenland and north of Iceland, and reaches Europe at North Cape, where it descends S. E. to about 66°, and continues eastward till, in Kamtchat'ka Sea, it makes a curve south to join the point of commencement. The southern limit nowhere reaches the Antarctic continent, though it passes very near it due south of Tierra del Fuego. 619. There is a remarkable similarity of species, both of plants and animals, in the high latitudes of both continents. In the most northern parts of the arctic lands the year is divided into one long, intensely cold night, and one bright, fervid day, which quickly brings to maturity the scanty vegetation. Within the limit of perpetual snow a very minute red or orange-colored plant finds nourishment in the snow itself. This is the beginning of vegetable life. Large patches of snow in the Alps and Pyrenees are colored by it. 620. 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 to appear on volcanic lavas and newly-formed islands, where they prepare the soil for plants of a higher order. They grow on rocks, stones, and trees; in fact, on any thing that affords them moisture. Mosses follow lichens on newly-formed soil, and they are found every where throughout the world in damp situations, but in greatest abundance in temperate climates. 621. In some places in Siberia trees grow and grain ripens, even at 70° N. lat.; but boundless swamps, varied by lakes, cover wide portions of this desolate country, which lies buried beneath the snow for 9 or 10 months in the year. As soon as the snow is melted by the returning sun, coarse grass and rushes cover the morasses, while mosses and li'chens, mixed with dwarf willows, clothe the plains. The vegetation of the arctic regions is chiefly characterized by the predominance of perennial and cryptog'amous plants. 622. A succession of plants appears on the mountains in the torrid zone which rise above the snow line, corresponding limits. -619. Of plants and animals in high latitudes. Of day and night in the arctic lands. First appearance of vegetable life.-620. Lichens. Mosses. -621. Productions of Siberia. Of vegetation in the arctic regions.-622. Vegetation on mountains.-623. Plants subjected to a change of climate and |
