Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/177

 *[Footnote: feet in height,—not a plant taken from among a vegetation stunted by cold either of latitude or elevation, as is the case with the small Willow-tree, two inches in height, (Salix arctica),—but a small phænogamous plant belonging to the fine climate of the southern tropic in the Brazilian province of Goyaz. The moss-like Tristicha hypnoïdes, from the monocotyledonous family of the Podostemeæ, hardly reaches the height of 3 lines (27/100ths, or less than three-tenths of an English inch.) "En traversant le Rio Claro dans la Province de Goyaz," says an excellent observer, Auguste de St.-Hilaire, "j'aperçus sur une pierre une plante dont la tige n'avoit pas plus de trois lignes de haut et que je pris d'abord pour une mousse. C'étoit cependant une plante phanérogame, le Tristicha hypnoïdes, pourvue d'organes sexuels comme nos chênes et les arbres gigantesques qui à l'entour élevaient leur cimes majestueuses." (Auguste de St.-Hilaire, Morphologie Végétale, 1840, p. 98.)

Besides the height of their stems, the length, breadth, and position of the leaves and fruit, the form of the ramification aspiring or horizontal, and spreading out like a canopy or umbrella,—the gradations of colour, from a fresh green or silvery grey to a blackish-brown, all give to Coniferæ a peculiar physiognomy and character. The needles of Douglas's Pinus lambertiana from North-west America are five French inches long; those of Pinus excelsa of Wallich, on the southern declivity of the Himalaya, near Katmandoo, seven French inches; and those of P. longifolia (Roxb.), from the mountains of Kashmeer, above a French foot long. In one]*