Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/156

 *[Footnote: from the Grossulariaceæ (the species of Ribes), and, viewed as it is by Kunth (Handbuch der Botanik, S. 609), we may well regard it as belonging exclusively to America. I am aware that Roxburgh, in the Flora Indica (inedita), cites two species of Cactus as belonging to South Eastern Asia;—Cactus indicus and C. chinensis. Both are widely disseminated, and are found in a wild state (whether they were originally wild or have become so), and are distinct from Cactus opuntia and C. coccinellifer; but it is remarkable that the Indian plant (Cactus indicus) has no ancient Sanscrit name. Cactus chinensis has been introduced in St. Helena as a cultivated plant. Now that a more general interest has at length been awakened on the subject of the original distribution of plants, future investigation will dispel the doubts which have been felt in several quarters respecting the existence of true Asiatic Opuntiaceæ. In the animal kingdom particular forms are found to occur singly. Tapirs were long regarded as a form exclusively characteristic of the New Continent; and yet the American tapir has been found as it were repeated in that of Malacca (Tapirus indicus, Cuv.)

Although the species of Cactus belong, generally speaking, more properly to the tropical regions, yet some are indigenous in the temperate zone, as on the Missouri and in Louisiana, Cactus missuriensis and C. vivipara; and Back saw with astonishment the shores of Rainy Lake, in north lat. 48° 40´, covered with C. opuntia. South of the equator the species of Cactus do not extend beyond the Rio Itata, in lat. 36°, and the Rio Biobio, in lat. 37° 15´. In the]*