Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/118

 *[Footnote: torrid zone (from 0° to 10° of latitude) at 1/10, we obtain for the part of the temperate zone which is between 45° and 52° latitude 1/18, and for the frigid zone (lat. 67° to 70° only 1/35. The direction followed by the great family of Leguminosæe (increase on approaching the equator), is also that of the Rubiaceæ, the Euphorbiaceæ, and especially the Malvaceæ. On the contrary, the Grasses and Juncaceæ (the latter still more than the former), diminish in approaching the equator, as do also the Ericeæ and Amentaceæ. The Compositæ, Labiatæ, Umbelliferæ, and Cruciferæ, decrease in proceeding from the temperate zone, either towards the pole or towards the equator, the Umbelliferæ and Cruciferæ decreasing most rapidly in the last-named direction; while at the same time in the temperate zone the Cruciferæ are three times more numerous in Europe than in the United States of North America. On reaching Greenland the Labiatæ have entirely disappeared with the exception of one, and the Umbelliferæ with the exception of two species; the entire number of phænogamous species, still amounting, according to Hornemann, to 315 species.

It must be remarked at the same time that the development of plants of different families, and the distribution of vegetable forms, does not depend exclusively on geographical, or even on isothermal latitude; the quotients are not always on the same isothermal line in the temperate zone, for example, in the plains of North America and those of the Old Continent. Within the tropics there is a very sensible difference between America, India, and the West Coast of Africa. The distribution of organic beings over the surface of the earth does not depend wholly on thermic or climatic]*