Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/190

 *[Footnote: Palms, Yuccas, Aloes, tall-stemmed Ferns, some Aralias, and the Theophrasta where I have seen it growing luxuriantly, different as they are in the structure of their flowers, yet offer to the eye in the nakedness (absence of branches) of their stems, and in the ornamental character of their tops or crowns, a certain degree of physiognomic resemblance.

The Melanoselinum decipiens (Hofm.), which is sometimes upwards of 10 or 12 feet high, and which has been introduced into our gardens from Madeira, belongs to a peculiar group of arborescent umbelliferous plants to which Araliaceæ are otherwise allied, and with which other plants which will doubtless be discovered in course of time will be associated. Ferula, Heracleum, and Thapsia, do indeed attain a considerable height, but they are still herbaceous plants. Melanoselinum is still almost entirely alone as an umbelliferous tree; Bupleurum (Tenonia) fruticosum (Linn.) of the shores of the Mediterranean; Bubon galbanum of the Cape, and Crithmum maritimum of our sea-shores, are only shrubs. On the other hand, the tropical zone, in which, according to the old and very just remark of Adanson, Umbelliferæ and Cruciferæ are almost entirely wanting in the plains, presented to us on the high ridges of the American Andes the smallest and most dwarf-like of all umbelliferous plants. Among 38 species of plants which we collected at elevations where the mean temperature is below 10° Reaumur (54°.5 Fah.), there vegetate almost like mosses, and as if they made part of the rock and of the often frozen earth, at an elevation of 12600 (13430 English) feet above the level of the]*