so exquisite, that the eastern poets fable it to have scented paradise. The same compliment should be paid to the Alimucta, the Capitt'ha", the D'urva, and the Cusad.

The cocoa tree of Brazil droops when planted in a rich soil. The red star flower,-one of the finest of African plants, grows luxuriantly among rocks and sand; and Scandinavian moss, which is scarcely susceptible of being burnt, grows frequently even on stones. The Bread-fruit tree, once introduced in a favourable soil and climate, springs up so abundantly from roots of old ones, that it is not only never

a This was the favourite plant of Sacontala, which she very justly called the delight of the woods; for the beauty and fragrance of its flowers give it a title to all the praises, which Ca'lidas and Jayadeva bestow upon it. It is a gigantic climber; but when it meets with nothing to grasp, it assumes the form of a sturdy tree, the highest branches of which display, however, in the air, their natural flexibility and inclination to climb.-Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. 291.

b of this plant Sir William Jones says, "I cannot help mentioning a singular fact, which may indeed have been purely accidental: not a single flower, out of hundreds examined by me, had both perfect germs, and anthers visibly fertile; while others, on the same tree, and at the same time, had their anthers profusely covered with pollen, but scarce any styles, and germs to all appearance abortive."

The flowers of this plant, in their perfect state, are among the loveliest objects in the vegetable world, and appear through a lens like minute rubies and emeralds in a constant motion from the least breath of air. It is the sweetest and most nutritious pasture for cattle; and its usefulness, added to its beauty, induced the Hindus, in their ages, to believe that it was the mansion of a benevolent nymph.-Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. p. 252.

d Every law-book, and almost every poem in Sanschrit, are said to contain allusions to this plant.

e Many plants have the greater virtue from the want of fluidical nourishment. There is a vine, producing in Persia what is called the Royal Grape. It is of a gold-colour; transparent; and about the size of an olive.-Chardin. It makes the best wine in that country; and yet it is never watered: and it grows only upon the young branches.

Few annual roots possess medicinal properties; and it is curious, that the most effective of drugs are natives of hot countries. Some plants in arid soils have apparently sterile branches, with green leaves. The stems are brittle and dried up; but their leaves imbibe moisture from the dews at night. The pallassia has for its appropriate soil loose and drifted sand. It grows in Peru.Molina. And is known in some parts of Russia.-Pallas.

planted in Otaheite, but requires weeding, as it were. The Pimento, on the other hand, seems to mock all the labours of man to extend, or even to improve its growth.

The best mode of introducing tropical plants into more temperate climates, is to transplant them by degrees: so that the grandchild of an original plant may live and flourish, where the mother would have languished, and the grandmother have died. With this view, the Marquis de Villanueva del Prado formed a botanical establishment at Teneriffe, in order to habituate the plants of Lower Africa, New Holland, Mexico, and other tropical regions, to the cooler temperature of the south of Europe. Suit the plant to the soil, rather than the soil to the plant, should be the motto of every husbandman: but the botanist must vary his methods as circumstances require.

M. Lavayse formed the plan of introducing tropical plants to the South of Europe, by planting them first in the Azores or Canaries; whence, after a few years, they might be transplanted to Italy, Sicily, and Spain. Duchesme raised plants with a view of ascertaining their primitive species; and Volney, in his observations on the climate and soil of the United States, informs us, that, foreseeing the consequences of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the French West India Islands, he conceived the plan of introducing some of the products of the Tropics into Corsica; the soil and climate of which he conceived to be adapted for the successful culture of the orange, the date, cotton, coffee, and sugar-cane. With this view he cultivated the Domain of Confina, near Ajaccio; but the subsequent troubles of the Island, the ambition of Paoli, and its possession by England-induced him to sell his estate; and it passing into the hands of Cardinal Fesch, the experiment was abandoned.

An English Gardener manages to have good fruit at St. Petersburg, notwithstanding the hardest winter; and this he manages by training his trees so near the ground, that during

the whole winter they are covered with snow. Even the deserts of Africa might be gradually brought under the empire of man, where he to plant detached portions of them with roots of the long creeping vegetables, which are found here and there in those regions.

Some plants are common to equinoctial Asia, Africa, and America: others only to equinoctial America and Africa; some only to equinoctial Africa and India; some only to America and Asia; and others only to America and Africaa: while others are equally common to Europe and New Holland.

To account for these singularities would perhaps be an impossible labour; but it may present no unprofitable result to the imagination, if we collect and contrast a few of these remarkable phenomena. The lily root, so common in Europe, is found in Newfoundland, the north-west coast of America, and in Kamschatka, as well as in the warmer parts of southern Asia. Heath, on the other hand, is not only unknown in the European latitudes of America, but throughout the whole of that continent ;- -a circumstance the more remarkable, since it is common in the opposite peninsula of Kamschatka. The papyrus, scarcely known except in Egypt, in Sicily, on the Congo, and in Madagascar, has never taken root on the opposite coasts: and of the thirteen species of African palm, the alfonsia oleifera is the only one, that has yet been discovered in America. And here we may allude to a very remarkable circumstance :-The cusso-tree does not extend beyond the limits of a disorder, which the leaves seem expressly intended to cure; viz.-that arising from the worms, to which the natives of Abyssinia are peculiarly subject.

The blue-berried honeysuckle of Switzerland, Austria, and

a Humboldt, in a paper submitted to the French Institute, says, that "the oak, pines, yews, ranunculi, &c. of the Peruvian and Mexican Andes have nearly the same physiognomy with the species of the same genera of North America, Siberia, and Europe. But all alpine plants of the Cordilleras differ specifically from the analogous species of the temperate zone of the old continent."

Siberia is found in some of the American islands; and the Pyrenean honeysuckle, introduced to England (1739) from the garden of the Duc d'Ayen, at St. Germains, is not only a native of the Pyrenees, but of Canada. The rhododendron is also found on the top of the Andes; as well as on the Caucasus. On the Alps it grows so luxuriantly as sometimes to smother the grass. The Greenland saxifrage is found in Iceland, among the Pyrenees, and La Perouse discovered it on a mountain of the Pacific, 1600 toises above the sea.

The Pallasia Halimifolia grows in Russia, and it is known also in Peru. In North America is found the lilium superbum of Japan; and in a glen near Hudson's Bay', auriculas, with leaves of a fine green, and flowers of purple. They have, however, no mealiness; but in other respects they differ little from those of Switzerland and Norway. Labradore, which exhibits, in the midst of its winds and storms, many fine scenes of natural grandeur, has mosses, equal to any in point of beauty seen in any other quarter of the world: and there, also, grow wild currants, gooseberries, cranberries, and the raspberries and strawberries of Europe.

The mountains of Spitzbergen, however barren they may appear in the distance, afford moss, and other small plants, such as poppies, scurvy grass, and ranunculi e. The spurred violet, though not a native of Britain, is indigenous in Iceland and in Switzerland; and yet Iceland plants are almost all British. In what manner could this violet become indigenous in Iceland, when Britain, lying between the two countries, knows it only as a guest?

b M'Keevor's Voy. p. 69.

c Integrifolia. Flora Danica. 188. d Chappel's Newfoundland and Labradore, 138.

e The same as in Lapland. "Caule unifolio et unifloro, foliis tripartitis."Flora Lapponica. Ranunculi, taken at Spitzbergen, and subject to pressure between paper and boards, during the voyage, vegetated in that position, and were living, when opened in England in the month of December.-See Parry's Narrative. Append. p. 208. 4to. f Viola calcarata.

Among the rocks of Sweden wild roses and geraniums add interest and splendour to one of the finest cataracts in that country; while the elegant pyrola uniflora, having a fragrance equal to that of the lily of the valley, blossoms not only in Sweden and the Hebrides, but in the south of France, and north of Italy. In Sweden, too, grows the rare plant, cypripedium bulbosum, which is a native of North America. It is seen in no part of Europe but near Kiemi; and to that town the professors of Upsal c send for specimens. Near Christiana the salix herbacea grows; but so diminutively, that Dr. Clarke compressed twenty of them into two pages of a duodecimo volume. It is the smallest of trees.

How came ranunculi to grow on an island in the Polar regions, at the mouth of Waygat's Strait, where there are no species of vegetation but moss, sorrel, and scurvy grass? Whence does it arise, that the paper mulberry is found in the island of Lefooga, and in scarcely any other of the Pacific islands? Why is not the nutmeg,-so abundant in the Malaccas,-found in the other Indian islands? Why is the tea-tree, which grows so abundantly in Java and its dependent islands to the east, denied to Sumatra and the peninsula of Malabar? And why is the anana of Hindûstân, the flavour of which seems to be compounded of sugar, strawberries, claret, and rose-water, and therefore so peculiarly worthy of transplantation, almost entirely confined to that country?

The Portuguese introduced the papaw into the Malay Islands, and yet they have neglected to introduce many fruits into Portugal, which would flourish as well in that country as in any of their tropical settlements.

The Alfonsia has a large trunk, but its height is only six

a Kaardisen nivas. Clarke, Scandinavia, p. 324.

b Acerbi, p. 339. 4to.

c Clarke, p. 476. 4to.

d Rumphius, Herb. Amboin. i. p. 147.