tended themselves in the same way, and that the Flora of Berlin has not acquired new species in a course of years? 'Plants that increase much by seed, and at the same time by the root, must be consequently the more widely dispersed; it is not therefore surprising, that several of these are found over all Europe, from one end of it to the other. Those plants too that have light seeds, which the wind can easily bear away, are more easily disseminated than those whose seeds are heavy. Some plants there. fore of the former description, have travelled from Lapland to the extremest point of Italy, nay, even to the north of Africa. The northern parts of Asia possess many of the plants of Europe. We see towards the north, the Northern Flora, towards the south, the Austrian, and between these the Helvetian conspicuous. It would seem that the European mountains had been sooner provided with soil, and that this had been late in taking place on the Asiatic mountains, or that very little soil had covered the mountains on the north-west coast of Asia. It is no wonder then if, even to the Uralian and Altaic chains of mountains, the plains on this side have few Asiatic, but many European plants. North America produces very many of the small European plants, which, for the most part, are those of the Northern Flora. It is therefore probable that at some former period, there had existed a connexion between both the old and new worlds, which in later times has been broken. In order to form a just idea of our proposition, with respect to the dispersion of the vegetables of our globe, we must travel over all the high primitive Alps, collect the Flora of each particular mountain down to its bottom, and in the neighbouring valiies, but we must not descend into the plains. Were Europe investigated in this manner, we would be able to determine, according to the number of plants found existing there, how the dispersion must have happened, and how the plants of this or that chain of moun tains have found their way to the plains. The sea-shore does not always indicate the Flora of the interior. Upon the coasts we often find plants that have been brought from the neighbouring regions. For this reason Asia, Africa, and America, within the tropics, possess many plants in common, which they have obtained from the shores of the neighbouring countries. But if we travel further into the interior of those parts of the world, these plants entirely disappear, and each of these portions of the globe exhibits to us its own indigenous productions, which are the more numerous, if many ranges of mountains, with a loose soil, be in the neighbourhood. At the Cape of Good Hope, we see around a Flora so rich, so peculiar, and so little mixed, because the place itself is a mountainous region. Madagascar possesses a numerous Flora, because that large island is very mountainous, and two quarters of the world, namely, Africa and Asia, between which it lies, communicate to it their various productions. The Bahama islands are indebted for their rich Flora to their own mountains and the neighbouring countries. We there find not only indigenous plants, but the most of those of Carolina and Florida, and very many inhabitants of the West Indies and of the Mexican Gulph. To find a plant existing as indigenous in all latitudes would be difficult. Such plants as are found widely dispersed, have been planted by the hand of man. The chickweed (Alsine media), which Linnæus and others affirm to be found every where, is met with only in those places to which our culinary plants have been con veyed. We do not find it mentioned by the Indian botanists, although it may perhaps grow in India; but in the warmer places of Africa, I doubt much if it would exist. An extensive range has been assigned to the common Nightshade, (Solanum nigrum), and the Strawberry (Fragaria vesca). But naturalists have taken similar plants for varieties of the common European species, and have ascribed to those mentioned a much more extensive residence than they really enjoy. The plants of the coasts have been more widely dispersed by Nature, than those of the interior. Yet even among these the Purslane (Portulaca oleracea), the Sow-thistle, (Sonchus oleraceus), and the Cellery, (Apium graveoleus), are the only ones that have wandered far : and indeed the two last have never been met with in the warmest regions of the globe. It may be doubted, however, if among the numberless plants which our earth produces, there may be any of so accommodating an organization as to endure every climate, as in the animal king dom, man, the dog and hog do, which we know will prosper from the torrid to the frigid zone. [Wildenow. CHAP. IV. NUTRITIVE PLANTS. SECTION I. Introductory Remarks. UNDER this title we shall only give specimens of such as are most rare, curious, or valuable; this being the direct scope of the present work, and the limit to which we have confined ourselves in every department of it. There is some difficulty, however, in drawing the line; since, such is the peculiar construction of the digestive organs of different kinds and classes of animals, that a plant or part of a plant which is harmless and inactive to one description, proves strongly medicinal to a second, a useful food to a third, and a rank poison to a fourth: thus the tetrao cupido or piunated grous, the deer, and some species of the elk, draw an excellent nutriment from the leaves of the kalmia latifolia, which are destructive to sheep, black cattle, horses, and man. The bee greedily and with perfect safety extracts its honey, but the comb hereby produced is poisonous to those who eat of it. So the dhanesa or Indian buceros, feeds to excess on the colubrina or nux vomica; the land crab (cancer raricola) on the berries of the hippomane or manchineel tree, and goats on the conium maculatum or medicinal hemlock. In the following sections, therefore, we shall take our examples from plantsTM employed as foods, cordials, or aromatics, by the different nations and varieties of mankind: aud our readers will readily allow us to introduce it with the following elegant verses of Dr. Darwin. "Sylphs! who round earth on purple pinions borne, Lead the gay hours along the ethereal hight, |