Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/178

 *[Footnote: and the same species the length of the leaves or needles varies in the most striking manner from the influence of soil, air, and elevation above the level of the sea. In travelling in an east and west direction through eighty degrees of longitude (above 3040 geographical miles), from the mouth of the Scheldt through Europe and the north of Asia to Bogoslowsk in the northern Ural and Barnaul beyond the Obi, I have found differences in the length of the needles of our common Fir (Pinus sylvestris) so great, that sometimes a traveller may be misled by the shortness and rigidity of the leaves, to think that he has discovered a new species allied to the Mountain Pine, P. rotundata (Link), P. uncinata (Ram.) Link has justly remarked (Linnæa, Bd. xv. 1841, S. 489) that such instances may be regarded as transitions to Ledebour's P. sibirica of the Altai.

In the Mexican highlands I have looked with particular pleasure on the delicate cheerful green of the Ahuahuete, Taxodium distichum (Rich.), Cupressus disticha (Linn.), which, however, is much given to shedding its leaves. In this tropical region the above-mentioned tree, (of which the Aztec name signifies water-drum, from atl, water, and huehuetl, a drum, the trunk swelling to a great thickness), flourishes 5400 and 7200 (5755 and 7673 English) feet above the level of the sea, while in the United States of North America it is found in the low grounds of the cypress swamps of Louisiana, in the 43d parallel. In the Southern States of North America the Taxodium distichum (Cyprès chauve) reaches, as in the Mexican highlands, the height of 120 (128 English) feet, and the]*