Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/106

 *[Footnote: *gamia, only 10042 species. Willdenow, in his edition of the Species Plantarum, between the years 1797 and 1807, had already described 17457 phænogamous species, (from Monandria to Polygamia diœcia.) If we add 3000 cryptogamous species, we obtain the number which Willdenow mentions, viz. 20000 species. More recent researches have shown how much this estimation of the number of species described and contained in herbariums falls short of the truth. Robert Brown counted above 37000 phænogamous plants. (General Remarks on the Botany of Terra Australis, p. 4.) I afterwards attempted to give the geographical distribution (in different parts of the earth already explored), of 44000 phænogamous and, cryptogamous plants. (Humboldt, de distributione geographica Plantarum, p. 23.) Decandolle found, in comparing Persoon's Enchiridium with his Universal System in 12 several families, that the writings of botanists and European herbariums taken together might be assumed to contain upwards of 56000 species of plants. (Essai élementaire de Géographie botanique, p. 62.) If we consider how many species have since that period been described by travellers,—(my expedition alone furnished 3600 of the 5800 collected species of the equinoctial zone),—and if we remember that in all the botanical gardens taken together there are certainly above 25000 phænogamous plants cultivated, we shall easily perceive how much Decandolle's number falls short of the truth. Completely unacquainted as we still are with the larger portions of the interior of South America,—(Mato-Grosso, Paraguay, the eastern declivity of the Andes, Santa Cruz]*