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Show 246 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. inhabitants of the torrid zone-surrounded by palms, bananas, and the other beautiful forms ptoper to those latitudes-to behold also those vegetable forms which, demanding a cooler temperature, would seem to belong to other zones. Elevation above the level of the sea gives this cooler temperature even in the hottest parts of the earth; and Cypresses, Pines, Oaks, Berberries, and Alders (nearly allied to our own) cover the mountainous districts and elevated plains of Southern Mexico and the chain of the Andes at the Equator. Thus it is given to man in those regions to behold without quitting his native land all the forms of vegetation dispersed over the globe, and all the shining worlds which stud the heavenly vault from pole to pole. (87) These and many other of the enjoyments which Nature affords are wanting to the nations of the North. Many constellations, and many vegetable forms-and of the latter, those which are most beautiful (palms, tree ferns, plantains, arborescent grasses, and the finely divided, feathery foliage of the l\fimosas)-remain for ever unknown to them. Individual plants languishing in our hot-houses can give but a very faint idea of the majestic vegetation of the tropical zone. But the high cultivation of our languages, the glowing fancy of the poet, and the imitative art of the painter, open to us sources whence flow abundant compensations, and from whence our imagination can derive the living image of that more vigorous nature which other climes display. In the frigid North, in the midst of the barren heath, the solitary student can appropriate mentally all that has been discovered in the most distant regions, and can create within himself a world free and imperishable as the spirit by which it is conceived. |
