principally covered with grass-like plants, such as _Kyllingia_,
_Cenchrus_, and _Raspalum_. With these we find a few dicotyledonous
plants, such as _Turnera_; some _Malvaceæ_, and, what is very
remarkable, species of _Mimosa_, with leaves quite sensitive to the
touch, which the Spaniards call _Dornuderas_. The same race of cows
which in Spain fatten upon sainfoin and clover, here find excellent
nourishment in the herbaceous sensitive plants. The pasturage is
richest, not only near rivers subject to inundations, but also where
the trunks of the palm-trees are the most crowded, which can not
be attributable to the shelter and protection which they have from
the sun’s rays, since the palm of the Llanos (_Corypha tectorum_)
has only a very few corrugated and palmate leaves, like those of
_Chamærops_, and the lower are always parched and dried up. Besides
the isolated trunks of palms we also find, here and there, in the
Llanos, groups of palms, in which the _Corypha_ mingles with a tree
of the family of _Proteaceæ_--a new species of _Rhopala_, with hard
and resonant leaves. In the Llanos of Caracas, the _Corypha_ extends
from the Mesa de Paja to Guayaval. More to the north and northwest
it is replaced by another species of the same genus, with leaves
equally palmate, but much larger. To the south of Guayaval other
palms predominate, chiefly the pinnate-leaved _Piritu_ (_Guilielma
speciosa_) and the _Mauritia flexuosa_, the sago-tree of America,
which supplies farinaceous food, good wine, thread to weave into
hammocks, clothes, and baskets; its fruit, in shape resembling
pine-cones, being covered with scales, like those of _Calamus_
(Rotang), with something of the taste of an apple. The Guaranes,
whose very existence, so to speak, depends on the Murichi palm,
obtain an acid and very refreshing fermented liquor from it. This
palm has large, shiny, corrugated, and fan-like leaves, maintaining
a most beautiful verdure in times of the greatest drought. The sight
of it alone in the Llanos produces an agreeable and refreshing
sensation; and the Murichi, laden with its scaly fruit, contrasts
singularly with the sad aspect of the palm of Cobija, the leaves of
which are always gray and covered with dust.
If we ascend the Andes, between 20° south latitude and 5° north,
at a height of from 5,000 to 10,000 feet above the sea level, we
shall find extra-tropical forms of vegetation become more abundant:
_Graminaceæ_; some _Amentaceæ_--such as the oaks, willows; _Labiatæ_;
_Ericaceæ_; numerous _Compositæ_; _Caprifoliaceæ_; _Umbelliferæ_;
_Rosaceæ_; _Cruciferæ_; and _Ranunculaceæ_. Tropical plants, on
the contrary, disappear, or become very rare; but still, isolated
species of palms, pepper-plants, _Cactaceæ_, passion-flowers, and
_Melastomaceæ_ are found at considerable heights. Among the most
abundant ligneous species are the _Ceroxylon andicola_, the highest
of all the palms, which reaches the height of 200 feet, and produces
a wax which exudes from its leaves, and from the base of their
petioles; willow and Humboldt’s oak; several species of _Cinchona_,
which here reign supreme; a few hollies, and species of _Andromeda_.
Vegetables cultivated between the tropics, in Mexico, and as far
south as the river Amazon, disappear almost entirely here; but maize
and coffee, the cereals and European fruits, are cultivated in these
regions; potatoes; _Chenopodium Quinoa_, the seeds of which, when
boiled, serve as food for the inhabitants of the mountains.
If we ascend to the height of 10,000 feet above the sea on the
Andes, and in the same latitude, tropical forms of vegetation almost
entirely disappear. Those, on the contrary, which characterize
temperate climates, and even the Polar regions, become abundant.
Large trees are no longer seen. Alders, bilberries, currants;
_Escallonia_, with bitter and tonic leaves, of which this is the
home; hollies and _Drymis_, are bushes belonging to these regions,
as well as the curious calceolarias, with shoe-shaped corolla,
the seeds of which have supplied horticulture with an infinite
number of varieties. Among the characteristic families we also find
_Umbelliferæ_, _Caryophyllaceæ_, _Cruciferæ_, _Cyperaceæ_, mosses and
lichens. Returning to more circumscribed botanical districts, the
climate of Caracas has often been called one of perpetual spring.
A more delicious temperature can not be conceived. During the day
it ranges between 60° and 68° Fahr., and in the night between 60°
and 64°, at once favorable to the growth of the banana, the orange,
coffee, the apple, apricot, and wheat.
We must not quit these regions without mentioning two beneficent
trees--the _Theobroma Cacao_ and the cow-tree, _Brosimum
Galactodendron_. The roasted and crushed seeds of _Theobroma
Cacao_, with the addition of sugar, make chocolate. Humboldt gives
the following account of the cow-tree, which has the habit of
_Chrysophyllum Cainito_: “The fruit is rather fleshy, consisting
of one, sometimes two nuts. When incisions are made in the trunk
an abundance of thick glutinous milk flows, which is without any
acidity. This substance exhales a very agreeable balsam-like odor.
It was presented to us in the fruit of the Calabash-tree. We drank
considerable quantities of it in the evening before going to bed,
and again early in the morning, without experiencing any injurious
effects. Negroes and free people who work on the plantations drink
of it, and soak their maize or manioc bread in it. The master of the
farm assured us that the slaves fattened visibly during the season
when the _Palo de Vacca_ furnishes them with most milk. Upon the arid
flank of a rock,” adds Von Humboldt, “there grows a tree whose leaves
are dry and coriaceous, its great ligneous roots almost piercing
the stone. During many months of the year not a shower waters its
foliage, the branches appear dry and dead; but when the trunk is
pierced a sweet and nourishing milk follows the incision.”
In order to penetrate to the heart of the vegetation of Brazil,
the region of palms and _Melastomaceæ_, the land of promise to
the naturalists, we shall take as our guide Martius and August
de Sainte-Hilaire, who have written with much exactness on the
vegetable wonders displayed in the Brazilian forests. Their aspect
varies according to the nature of the soil, and the distribution
of water traversing them. If these forests are not the seat of a
constant supply of moisture, or if the moisture is only renewed by
periodical rains, the drought stops the vegetation, and it becomes
intermittent, as in European climates. This is the case in the
Catingas. The vegetation of the untrodden forests, on the contrary,
of which Sainte-Hilaire gives an eloquent picture, is the reverse of
this; excited by the ceaseless action of the two agents, humidity
and heat, the vegetation of the virgin forests remains in a state
of continual activity. The winter is only distinguished from the
summer by a shade of color in the verdure of the foliage; and if
some of the trees lose their leaves, it is to assume immediately a
new appearance. “When a European arrives in America, and sees from a
distance the untrodden forests for the first time, he is astonished
not to see the singular forms which he admired in European hothouses,
but which are here mingled in masses and lost. And he is astonished
at the little difference in the outline of the forests between those
of his own country and those of the New World, and he is only struck
with the proportions and the deep green color of the leaves, which,
under the most brilliant sky imaginable, impart a grave and severe
aspect to the landscape. In order to appreciate all the beauties of
the tropical forest we must plunge into retreats as old as the world.
Nothing there reminds us of the fatiguing monotony of our oak and fir
forests: each tree has a bearing peculiar to itself. Each has its
own foliage, and often its own peculiar shade of verdure. Gigantic
specimens of vegetation, each belonging to different, sometimes to
remote, families, mingle their branches and blend their foliage.
Five-leaved _Bignoniaceæ_ grow beside _Cæsalpinia_, and the golden
leaves of _Cassia_ spread themselves in falling upon arborescent
ferns. Myrtles and _Eugenia_, with their thousand-times-divided
branches, are finely contrasted with the elegant simplicity of the
palms; _Cecropia_ spreads its broad leaves and branches, which
resemble immense candelabra, among the delicate foliage of _Mimosa_.
There are trees with perfectly smooth bark, others are defended by
prickly spines; and the enormous trunk of a species of wild fig
spreads itself out with sloping plates, which seem to support it like
so many arched buttresses. The obscure flowers of our beeches and
oaks only attract the attention of naturalists; but in the forests
of South America gigantic trees often display the most brilliant
colors in their corolla. Long golden clusters hang from the branches
of the _Cassia_. _Vochysia_ erect a thyrsus of odd-shaped flowers.
Yellow and sometimes purple corollas, longer than those of our
_Digitalis_, cover in profusion the species of trumpet-flowered
_Bignonia_; and _Chorisia_ is decked with flowers which resemble
our lily in shape, and remind us of _Alstromeria_ from the mixture
of colors they present. Certain vegetable forms, which assume at
home very humble proportions, present themselves with a floral pomp
unknown in temperate climates; some _Boraginaceæ_ become shrubs; many
_Euphorbiaceæ_ assume the proportions of majestic trees, offering an
agreeable shelter under their thick umbrageous foliage.”
But it is principally among the _Graminaceæ_ that the greatest
difference is observable. Of these there are a great number which
attain no larger dimensions than our _Bromus_, forming masses of
grass only distinguished from European species by their stems being
more branchy, and the leaves larger. Others shoot up to the height of
the forest tree, with a graceful habit. At first they are as upright
as a lance, terminating in a point, with only one leaf, resembling
a large scale, at each internode; when these fall, a crown of short
branches springs from their axils, bearing the true leaves. The
stems of the bamboos are thus decorated with verticils at regular
intervals. It is to the _Lianes_ principally that tropical forests
are indebted for their picturesque beauty, and these are the source
of the most varied effects. Our own honeysuckle and the ivy give but
a faint idea of the appearance presented by the crowd of climbing
and creeping plants belonging to many different families. These are
_Bignoniaceæ_, _Bauhinia_, _Cissus_, and _Hippocrateaceæ_, and while
they all require a support, they each have notwithstanding a bearing
peculiar to themselves. One of those climbing parasites will encircle
the trunk of the largest trees to a prodigious height, the marks
left by the old leaves seeming in their lozenge-shaped design to
resemble the skin of a serpent. From this parasitic stem spring large
leaves of a glossy green, while its lower parts give birth to slender
roots, which descend again to the earth straight as a plumb-line. The
tree which bears the Spanish name of _Cipo-Matador_, “the murderous
Liane,” has a trunk so slight that it can not support itself alone,
but must find support on a neighboring tree more robust than itself.
It presses against its stem, aided by its aerial roots, which embrace
it at intervals like so many flexible osiers, by which it secures
itself and defies the most terrible hurricanes. Some _Lianes_
resemble waving ribbons, others are twisted in large spirals, or hang
in festoons, spreading between the trees, and darting from one to
another, twining round them, and forming masses of stem, leaves, and
flowers, where the observer often finds it difficult to assign to
each species what belongs to it.
Thousands of different species of shrubs, _Melastomaceæ_,
_Boraginaceæ_, _peppers_, and _Acanthaceæ_, springing up round the
roots of large trees, fill up the intervals left between them.
Species of _Tillandsia_ and orchids, with flowers of strange and
whimsical shape, make their appearance, and these often serve as
supports to other parasites. Numerous brooks generally run through
these forests, communicating their own freshness to the forest
vegetation, presenting to the tired traveler delicious and limpid
water, while the banks of the stream are carpeted with mosses,
lycopodiums, and ferns, from the midst of which spring begonias,
with delicate and succulent stems, unequal leaves, and flesh-colored
flowers.
The forests of Paraguay, still little known, situated along the
coast of the Atlantic, consist of ligneous _Compositæ_ and _Ilex
paraguayensis_, the Paraguay tea, of which a large quantity is
annually exported.
In the Argentine Republic Auguste de Saint-Hilaire found only 500
species of plants, among which only fifteen belonged to families
which are not European.
When we reach the south coast of Patagonia and the Falkland Islands,
a few brown and coriaceous _Graminaceæ_ and _Cyperaceæ_, such as
_Dactylis cæspitosa_, _Carex trifida_, _Bolax glebaria_, _Cardamine
glacialis_, _Veronica_, _Calceolaria_, _Aster_, _Opuntia Darwinii_,
_Lomaria magellanica_ among the tree ferns, a few brambles,
thickets of bilberries and _Arbutus_, include nearly the whole of
the vegetation of these desert lands, where mosses, hepaticas, and
lichens reign supreme. We now reach the southern part of South
America. In the stormy region of Terra del Fuego thick forests
cover the mountains, where they are sheltered from the wind, to the
height of 1,500 feet above the level of the sea. _Fagus betuloides_
predominates there; then comes _F. antarctica_, accompanied by
barberry and currant bushes.
At the Island of Hermite, the most southerly point of the American
Continent, there is still some arborescent vegetation. Hooker
there observed eighty-four flowering plants and many cryptogams. A
fungus parasitic on the beech (_Cyttaria Gunnii_) constitutes there
a principal aliment of the miserable inhabitants of these gloomy
regions.
The Australian flora presents forms more ancient than any other
contemporary vegetation. More than nine-tenths of the species found
between 33° and 35° south latitude, in Australia, are absolutely
limited to these regions. Many constitute completely distinct
families; others form families which are scarcely represented in
any other part of the globe. Those even which belong to groups more
generally diffused disguise their natural affinities under forms
isolated and unlike their congeners. The different species of two
genera, namely, _Eucalyptus_ among _Myrtaceæ_, and _Acacia_ among
_Leguminosæ_, form perhaps, from their number and dimensions,
one-half of the vegetation which covers the country. Their leaves
are reduced to phyllodes. Neither these phyllodes nor the limb of
the real leaves are placed horizontally, like those of Europe and
other parts of the world, but are perpendicular to the surface of
the soil, so that the light shining between these vertical blades
is not arrested, as in the case with our trees and bushes, in which
the leaves are placed transversely one above the other. The effect
produced by masses of Australian verdure is thus entirely different
from that to which we are accustomed. The aspects of these forests
particularly struck the first travelers who visited them, from
the singular sensation communicated to the eye by this mode of
distributing light and shade.
_Eucalyptus_, which occupies such a large place in Australian
vegetation, may be said to be the sacred tree with the natives; it
shadows the tombs of the savage inhabitants of these countries. Sir
Thomas Mitchell, the traveler to whom we owe the first scientific
description of Australia, has given a remarkable picture of “these
groves of death,” which are daily becoming more and more rare, and
will disappear under the influence of European colonization. He
relates that these groves mark the centre of the patrimonial land
of each great Australian tribe. Little _tumuli_ of grass, and sandy
footpaths, surround the clumps of these funereal squares, over
which spreads the shadow of the _Eucalyptus_ and _Xanthorrhæa._ If
to the magnificent _Eucalyptus_ and simple-leaved _Acacia_, which
predominate in the forests and give quite a special character to the
vegetation, we add the _Xanthorrhæa_, with its thick stem, long,
narrow, linear leaves, curved and spreading at the summit, from the
centre of which rises an elongated stem, terminated by a spike of
robust flowers; the _Casuarina_, with long, pendent, and drooping
boughs, most delicately articulated; _Araucaria excelsa_, whose
column-like trunk and verticillate branches rise to the height of
ninety or a hundred feet; the elegant _Epacridaceæ_, with flowers
so varied; a vast number of pretty _Leguminosæ_, which now add to
the riches of our hothouses; more than 120 terrestrial _Orchidaceæ_,
nearly all belonging to genera peculiar to Australia, we shall have
an idea of the vegetation which covers and decorates in so original a
way the shores of New Holland.
The large islands of New Zealand almost correspond in latitude with
the zone which we have been examining. These islands are the nearest
land (considering Van Diemen’s Land as part of Australia), and are
interesting as being the exact antipodes of western Europe, and
because they repeat as it were our Mediterranean region on the other
side of the globe. While resembling it in climate, however, the
native vegetation has its own characteristics. It has some features
in common with Australia and the tropics.
In the large island of Ika-na-Nawi there are immense forests of
_Lianes_ and interlacing shrubs, which render them impenetrable. In
these forests there exist, no doubt, trees of gigantic dimensions,
for the canoes of the natives are sometimes as much as sixty feet
long, and from three to four broad, all hollowed out of one trunk. At
from two to four miles from the coast Messrs. Richard and Lesson saw
large spaces, very low and probably marshy, covered with great masses
of green trees, of which the _Dacrydium cupressinum_ and _Podocarpus
dacrydiodes_ and some others, form the principal species. The
European is surprised to meet there many familiar plants, or species
closely allied to them, such as _Senecio_, _Veronica_, rushes,
_Ranunculus acris_, etc. On the other hand, several plants peculiar
to New Zealand grow abundantly in these localities, such, among
others, as the _Phormium tenax_, called by Europeans New Zealand
Flax, because its fibres furnish a very strong thread, much used in
the manufacture of certain fabrics.
Ferns form a tenth of the number of species in the whole
vegetation of New Zealand; among Monocotyledons are _Graminaceæ_
and _Cyperaceæ_; among Dicotyledons, _Umbelliferæ_, _Cruciferæ_,
and _Onagrariaceæ_. New Zealand only furnishes a small number of
alimentary plants. The aboriginal inhabitants of this archipelago,
for the most part ichthyophagous, were long reduced to the feculent
root of a fern, the _Pteris esculenta_, for food, when they could
not obtain fish. None of their trees produce large fruit. The taro
(_Caladium esculentum_) and the sweet potato (_Convolvulus Batatas_)
also serve as nourishment to the inhabitants of these countries.
It is to be remarked that European vegetables, introduced into New
Zealand by sailors, are propagated there with such facility that
the aspect of the ground, as well as conditions of life, are greatly
modified. Among the vegetables proper to the archipelago in question
we may note the _Corypha australis_ among the palms; arborescent
species of _Dracæna_, forests of _Coniferæ_, with large leaves, such
as _Dammara_, and _Metrosideros_ among the _Myrtaceæ_.
ZONES OF VEGETATION
--M. J. SCHLEIDEN
If, from the snow-covered ice-plains of the extreme north, where
the Red-snow Alga alone remind us of the existence of vegetable
organization, we turn toward the south, a girdle first expands
before us, in which mosses and lichens clothe the soil, and a
peculiar vegetation of low plants with subterranean, perennial
stems, and generally large, handsome flowers, the so-called Alpine
plants, gives a special character to Nature. Almost all the plants
form little, flattened, separate tufts; _Pyrola_, _Andromeda_,
_Pedicularis_, _Cochlearia_, poppies, crow-foots, and others are
the characteristic genera of this flora, in which no tree, no shrub
flourishes. Leaving this region, which botanists call the region of
Mosses and Saxifrages, or, after one of the founders of Geographical
Botany, Wahlenberg’s region, we go southward, and at first we see
little low bushes of birches, then more compacted woods, into which
the pines and other coniferous trees assemble, and we at last find
ourselves in a second great zone of vegetation which is characterized
by the woods consisting almost exclusively of conifers, which thus
impress a peculiar character upon the flora; firs and pines, Siberian
stone-pines and larches form great widely extended masses of forest;
by brooks and on damp soil occur the willow and the alder. On dry
hills grow the reindeer lichen and Iceland moss. In the cranberry,
cloud-berry, and the currant Nature gives spontaneously, though
sparingly, food; and a rich flora of variegated flowers serves for
the decoration of the zone, which stretches, in Scandinavia, to
the northern limit of the cultivation of wheat, but in Russia and
Asia, almost to Kazan and Yakutsk; we will call it the zone of the
conifers. Even in the neighborhood of Drontheim, the culture of
fruits begins, though sparingly; soon appears the sturdy oak, called,
with rather too much poetic license, “the German”; in Schoonen,
Zealand, Schleswig, and Holstein flourish the first woods of beech.
In about the latitude of Frankfort-on-the-Main, another tree joins
company, which, in its bold, picturesque mode of branching, takes its
stand beside the oak--which in the beauty of its foliage, as well
as the utility of its fruit, it far surpasses--namely, the noble
chestnut. The Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Caucasus form the southern
limit of the zone, in the more eastern portion of which the lime and
the elm contribute so abundantly to the composition of the forests
that the former even withstands the devastation which the Esthonians
make in the manufacture of their shoes from its bass. In the hop, the
ivy, and the clematis we find here the first representation of the
tropical climbers. The smiling green of the meadows alternates with
the gloomy shadows of the forests; and man has taken possession of
the earth, restraining the wild vegetation to that absolutely needful
for wood and hay, and rich crops reward his industry. We leave this
zone of the deciduous woods to scale the rocky barrier of the Alps.
Here suddenly appear quite different plants; with the great woods
of trees, the coriaceous shining leaves of which last through the
mild winter, and round the mighty stems of which climb the vine and
flame-colored Bignonias, unite the smaller bushes of myrtle, arbutus,
and pistachio. Here and there the dwarf-palm is met with; labiate
plants and crucifers, and fair-flowered rock-roses replace in summer
the spring flora of scented hyacinth and narcissus; but rarely, even
in the most favored spots, is the eye dazzled by the brilliancy of
evergreen leaves, or the glaring play of color of the naked, jagged
mountain chains, gladdened by the mild radiance of verdant meadows.
In recompense, mankind has, in this zone of evergreen woods,
seized upon the fruit of the Hesperides. It is
“the land where the Citrons blow,
Through the dark-green leaves the gold Oranges glow.”