Page:An Essay on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine.djvu/27

 momum, yielding the tej-pat, or bay-leaf of India, the Malabathrum of the Ancients ; also Piper longum, which does not, however, furnish long pepper sufficiently good or abundantly enough to be an article of commerce ; together with Shorea robusta, one of the Dipterocarpece ; Embryop- teris glutinifera, one of the Ebenacece ; as well as Semecarpus Anacardium, and the Catechu-yielding Acacia; with Bauhinia racemosa and HiptageMadablota, as gigantic climbers. Here the geologist will be interested in seeing a full-grown Pine alongside of a dwarfish Palm, and the Rattan trailing in valleys, with the Plantain wild and flourish- ing at the foot of mountains, on which species of Acer, Ulmus, Betula, Carpinus, and Juglans (genera found in a fossil state) are growing in fullest luxuriance. The agri- culturalist will here notice the excellence of the rice cultivated in some of these vallies, and that the Banana, Jack-fruit (Artocarpus integrifolia), and Guava (Psidium pyriferum) succeed nearly as well as in the rich soil and moist climate of Bengal.

If we wish, however, to draw either scientific or practical deductions from the prevalence in any situation of particular plants, we must pay especial attention on the one hand to the habit, and on the other to the proportional number of the species, as compared with the general character of the family ; for though the different families of plants occur in the greatest numbers in particular countries and cbmates, yet they frequently send their representatives into very distant regions. Thus we have in the south of Europe, either indigenous or introduced, a Laurel, a Palm, a Myrtle, Oleander, Calotropis, Vitex, and a few Acacias, all which belong to families occurring in the greatest numbers in tropical countries. So, some of those which form the largest trees of Equinoctial regions occur in European countries as annual herbs ; as of the Malvacece, the huge Silk-cotton-tree in the former, and the humble Mallow in