ficent species, measuring two feet in diameter, has been discovered in a small island near Java, called Nusa Kambangar; and this has been figured by Blume in his Flora Javæ, from which the accompanying representation is a copy. By the natives it is called Patma; and hence the botanical name proposed for it is Rafflesia Patma. Another of these vegetable paradoxes, figured also by Blume, is a native of the province of Buitenzorg, in the western parts of Java, and grows at the height of from 1200 to 1500 feet above the level of the sea. He has called it Brugmansia Zippeli; the generic term is however untenable, as a genus separated from Datura [§ 4512] had previously been dedicated to Brugmans, and received his name.

(4918.) These fungoid flowers, which so curiously combine the most essentially diverse structures, close the descriptive part of these general Outlines; for, after having in the preceding classes traced the development and gradual perfecting of the vegetable organismus, and followed the several stages of evolution, from the cellular and seedless through the tubivascular and seed-bearing plants, a return is made, in the Cytinales, from the 2-lobed and 1-lobed Exogena and Endogenæ, even to the acotyledonous cellulares, viz. to that part of the series whence the earliest examples were taken, and with which the details were begun. For, although the Rafflesia consist of blossom only, yet in them the characters of a flower are almost extinct. The bud resembles a fungus, the pericarp becomes a peridium, and the seeds assume the condition of spores. Indeed, the parasitic habits and general appearance of these plants and their allies, Cynomorium, Helosis, and Balanophora, might well lead to their approximation to the fungi, and vindicate for the latter its specific name, fungosa, and for the former its old appellations of Fungus Typhoides vel Melitensis, the Maltese champignon, or mushroom of Malta.

(4919.) The subdivisions of this class are so few, that, excepting for the sake of obedience to the hitherto unbroken rule of concluding the details of each with a conspectus, it would scarcely be necessary to repeat them in a tabular form.

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS.

(4920.) The SELANTHI, or Cytinares, belong exclusively to warm countries; they are chiefly natives of the torrid zone in either hemisphere, sometimes, however, being found at considerable elevations, and occasionally, as in the case of Cytinus and Cynomorium, extending as far north as the southern parts of Europe. Helosis and Langsdorfia are natives of the West Indies, or Continental America within the tropics; Aphyteia of equinoctial Africa; Balanophora of the New Hebrides; and the Raflesia have hitherto been only found in Java and Sumatra.

(4921.) Hence their distribution assumes rather a local than a general character, a special than a general interest. Like the Fungi, to which they bear

such strange similitude, the Selanthi are unknown in a fossil state. The coincidence is worthy of remark; for this negative fact, although it at once prevents any special geological disquisitions, is not without its value in more general researches into the present and former conditions of the vegetable world.

(4922.) Having concluded the separate histories of the nine natural classes into which plants have been divided, and appended to the descriptive details of each, their geographical distribution and geological positions, as far as either have been hitherto determined, it only now remains to give a general summary of the relative proportions in which they occur in the several great divisions of the world, i. e. of the vegetable statistics of the several zones.

(4923.) The five zones with which geographers encircle the globe, although very arbitrary divisions of its surface, and the parallels of latitude, although very often discordant with the isothermal lines which indicate the mean temperature or actual climate of different regions, are still, from their universal acceptation, the most convenient demarcations for general reference; and, notwithstanding their frequent deviations from the climatorial belts, they are yet sufficiently coincident for general statistical considerations, which are all with which we at present are concerned; the absolute numbers and the relative proportions in which the different tribes of plants spontaneously occur, or are cultivated by art in any particular region or country, forming a part of the natural history of that spot, or of the special vegetable statistics of that individual place.

(4924.) Of the 50,000 known species of existing vegetables, the cellular flowerless plants being estimated at 8 or 10,000, and the flowering or tubivascular ones at upwards of 40,000, of which the endogenous tribes may amount to 9 or 10,000, and the exogenous ones to more than 30,000, it would appear that between 20 and 25,000, i. e. about half of all known vegetables, are natives of the torrid zone. Of these it has been computed that upwards of 13,000 flowering plants are indigenous to equinoctial America, between 5 and 6,000 to equatorial Asia, and about 3,500 to Africa within the tropics, including both the continental countries and the dependent isles. In Australia and the islands of the Pacific about 5,000 species have been discovered, some of which belong to the torrid and some to the temperate zone. Besides these, nearly 2,000 belong to the temperate parts of Asia, above 4,000 to the temperate regions of America, both in the northern and southern hemispheres, and 7,000 to Europe, most of which are proper to its temperate latitudes, and very few to its polar regions. Of the antarctic vegetation there is next to nothing known.

(4925.) The Cryptogamic, or flowerless cellular plants, have been purposely left out of the previous calculations, for they are almost peculiar to the circumpolar regions and the colder parts of the temperate zones. The Protococci, which alternate in layers with the arctic snows; the Lichens, which cover the polar rocks; the Mosses, which flourish within the frigid zone, are all but absent from the intertropical regions; and the Conferva, with which the icy waters of Lapland, and Sweden, and Scotland abound, and which, although plentiful in Britain, and the colder parts of the north temperate regions, yet gradually become more scarce in the southern ones, in the equatorial latitudes are almost unknown; the Fuci being the chief representatives of these tribes within the tropics: and even Fungi,

the most vagrant of all vegetables, and which in high latitudes are so extraordinarily abundant, so numerous in their species, and so profuse in individual production, are rare in lower ones, and from countries near the equator they are almost or altogether absent.

(4926.) In the stead, however, of Confervæ, lichens, and mosses, equinoctial vegetation consists of palms and arboreous ferns, of arborescent grasses and treelike Musacea; the dense and interminable forests are formed of gigantic evergreen trees, to which belong the myrtle, the nutmeg, the clove, the turpentine, and the coffee tribes: instead of woodbines; there are peppers and passion-flowers: instead of sedges; ginger, cardamom, zedoary: and, instead of parasitic fungi, epiphytic Orchidine. The Malvacea, the Euphorbiacea, the Urticacea, and even the Composita and Gramina, become arborescent; so that within the torrid zone there are few rich pasture lands, thick and almost impenetrable jungles displacing our rich boundless meadows and daisy-spangled meads.

(4927.) In the temperate zones, as the distance gradually increases from the equator, the forest-trees become deciduous; the olive and the grape are less and less common, until at length oil and wine are superseded, as common articles of human food, by beer and butter; the bamboos and rigid grasses give way to more tender species; the arborescent mallows, euphorbias, and nettles, become shrubs, and subsequently herbs; the Orchises leave their aerial and epiphytic sites, and vegetate in the ordinary soil, and mosses and lichens occupy their stations on old or decaying trees; the fresh waters abound with Confervæ; and dead vegetables are covered with fungi.

(4928.) As the latitudes increase, the richness and abundance of the vegetation decreases. In the north temperate zone, the forests consist of birch, alder, willow, and fir, instead of the plane, the bread-fruit, and the mimosa; many trees and shrubs become herbaceous plants, so that wood either for building or fuel is scarcely known; and, although the grasses long strive against increasing cold, substituting one species for another as an approach is made towards the pole, they at length give way to lichens, which in Lapland and Iceland cover the boundless wastes, affording forage and pasture to the flocks and berds. In such situations, the words corn, and wine, and oil, are strange unmeaning sounds, or the names of foreign delicacies, of which travellers may have told, but which, to the common people, are any thing but ordinary articles of food.

(4929.) Such are some of the more general features of the vegetation in these several zones. Of the varied predominance of the different classes in each there is sufficient proof, but of their relative proportions the calculations are not complete. The following are some of the ratios made out with much labour by Humboldt, De Candolle, Brown, and others.

(4930.) Of 3880 flowering plants found within the tropics of the New World by Humboldt and Bonpland, 3226 were dicotyledonous, and 654 monocotyledonous; and the above, although only a third or a fourth, may be taken as a fair average of the whole. Of the monocotyledons, the Palmales and Musales, with the perigynous part of the Liliales, are much more frequent within than without the tropics; and the Juncales, with the hypogynous Liliales, are more common in extra- than intra-tropical latitudes. Hence, within the tropics of America, the monocotyledons are to the dicotyledons as 1 to 5; in equinoctial Asia, Africa, and Australia, the proportion is, according to the calculations of Brown, as 1

to 4; while cryptogamic or flowerless plants, compared with flowering ones, are found to exist in equatorial latitudes only in the proportion of 1 to 14, in the plains, or true equatorial climate, although in elevated situations, the ratio rises to 1-5th, so as to make them on an average as 1 to 8 or 9.

(4931.) In the temperate zones the proportion of mono- to di-cotyledonous plants does not vary so much as the plants vary in their port and habit. It is, however, reduced, and appears to be as 1 to 3 or 4, the abundance of rushes and grasses keeping up the number. But, on the other hand, here the cryptogamic tribes greatly increase their relative proportion, being indeed as high as 1 to 2 ; i. e. forming on an average one third of the entire vegetation, and in som? places, as in Sweden, according to Wahlenberg, they are as 4 to 1. But Sweden is peculiarly rich in these plants, and they have there been more accurately and extensively examined than in most other countries; so that it is not an average example.

(4932.) In the frigid zone, or rather within the circumpolar regions, extending them somewhat beyond the arctic circle, the native dicotyledons are to the monocotyledons as 3 to 1, or as 2 to 5. The ratio varies however considerably according to the absence or presence of certain polar tribes, as Saxifragaceæ, Brassicacea, &c. In Iceland, according to Hooker, there are 239 exogenous plants to 135 endogenous ones; that is, including the ferns. And in Lapland, according to Wahlenberg, 340 to 157. But in Greenland, on the coasts of which the Graminea are very scarce, the proportion is, according to Brown, as 4 to 1; and in Spitzbergen the disproportion is still greater; while in Melville Island it is as 5 to 2. Hence 1 to 3 or 4 may be taken as their average in the frigid zone.

(4933.) In the circumpolar regions the cold-loving Cryptogamic plants abound, but perhaps their prevalence is owing as much, or more, to the extensive multiplication of individuals as to the increase of genera or species. This forms a reverse analogy with the flowering plants, the especial tribes of the warmer zones; for, where their individual prevalence is great, the number of species amongst any given number of individuals, or the number of genera amongst any given number of species, is less than in the frozen regions of the north, while here the contrary takes place with the same tribes, or the same thing with the contrary ones.

(4934.) In Iceland, according to Hooker, there are 263 cellular flowerless plants to the 135 Endogena, and 239 Exogenæ above mentioned; that is, about , which may be assumed to be their average proportion, although in many places the ratio is much higher. Thus, in Melville Island, they are as 58 to 67; that is, this single group is nearly equal to both the Endogene and Erogena combined; and in Sweden, as before observed, they are about 4 to 1; that is, the whole of the flowering tribes collectively only amount to one fifth, while the cellular plants alone form nearly four fifths of the entire vegetation.

(4935.) In conclusion, we may ask how far does the general geographical distribution of existing plants agree with the general geological positions in which the fossil remains of the vegetables of former ages are found? And whether these general comparisons throw any light on the former history of the globe, or of its organic productions, which the preceding views of each particular class has failed to afford?

(4936.) The confirmation which such a general view affords to the particular inferences drawn from the investigation of each separate class or individual group,

if not one of its more striking features, is far from being one of its least important uses. The cumulative argument is here of exceeding value; for, although the evidence with respect to the coincidence existing between the geographical and geological distribution and position of any special group might be sufficient for it, individually, even if nothing were known of co-relative proofs, yet the concurrent testimony of every class adds much force to the arguments built upon these facts, and renders what might at one time be considered a plausible hypothesis, a sound and rational theory.

(4937.) That certain tribes of existing plants abound or prevail in certain latitudes, and that certain fossil vegetables are found in certain strata, either exclusively, or most abundantly, admits not of question; and now, having the concurrent testimony of every class, it is not less certain that the different classes have borne different relative proportions to each other in different epochs, as they now do in different latitudes.

(4938.) Furthermore, the opinion seems established, that fossil plants which can be identified as belonging to recent species, are found in the superior or more recent strata; that fossils which are specifically distinct from any plants now existing, are discovered in the lower or older strata; and that when they cannot be referred immediately to any modern species or genus, their similitude is greatest, and their affinity (remote though it often be) is nearest, to plants now natives of the torrid zones; the fossils in question being however exhumed in cold or temperate regions, so that the idea of climatorial changes to a vast extent having occurred, which the different classes severally suggested, is, from the concurrent sanction of the whole, rendered more than probable.

(4939.) There are two other facts, of no slight importance, which such a general view reveals: first, that however prevalent certain tribes of existing plants may be in certain latitudes, and however rare in others, still that some representatives of each class, and of many of the larger and more important natural orders, are found both within and without the tropics: in the torrid, the temperate, and often in the frigid zone.

(4940.) And, secondly, the geological coincidence with the foregoing. For however partially the flora of preceding epochs may have been preserved, and however imperfectly we are yet possessed of the fragments that do remain, there does seem sufficient reason for believing, that although certain tribes in a fossil state prevail in certain strata, as recent ones predominate in certain latitudes, that representatives of the principal classes and of the most differently constructed plants existed in almost every great epocha since the creation. The Fungi and the Fungoid Selanthi are the principal exceptions, for the assumed absence of the grasses is questionable. None, it is true, have been found, or perhaps we should rather say, no grass has been positively identified in a fossil state. Thus, taking the apparent exceptions, even at the uttermost, they apply to a comparatively small portion of the vegetable kingdom, and the proof of their being exceptions is only negative and indirect; while the testimony, as to the existence of some representatives of at least six out of the nine classes, and those the largest classes, is direct and positive. These six classes likewise include examples of the most rude and simple, as well as of the most perfect and complicated forms. (4941.) An inference to be deduced from these facts, a conclusion which indeed does seem inevitable, is, that the doctrine or hypothesis of progressive development is