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Show 312 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. (15) p. 238.-" Palms." It is remarkable, that of this majestic form of plants (some of which rise to more than twice the height of the Royal Palace at Berlin, and to which the Indian Amarasinha gave the characteristic appellation of "Kings among the Grasses") up to the time of the death of Linnreus only 15 species were described. The Peruvian travellers Ruiz and Pavon added to these 8 more species. Bonpland and I, in passing over a more extensive range of country, from 12° S. lat. to 21 o N. lat., described 20 new species of palms, and distinguished as many more, but without being able to obtain complete specimens of their flowers. (Humboldt, de distrib. geogr. Plantarum, pp. 225-233.) At the present time, 44 years after my return from Mexico, there are from the Old and New World, including the East Indian species brought by Griffith, above 440 regularly described species. The Enumeratio Plantarum of my friend Kunth, published in 1841, had already 356 species. A few, but only a few species of palms, are, like our Coniferre, Quercinere, and Betulinere, social plants j such are the Mauritia fiexuosa, and two species of Chamrerops, one of which, the Chamrerops humilis, occupies extensive tracts of ground near the mouth of the Ebro, and in Valencia j and the other, C. mocini, discovered by us on the Mexican shore of the Pacific, and entirely without prickles, is also a social plant. While some kinds of palms, including Chamrerops and Cocos, are littoral or shore-loving trees, there is in the tropics a peculiar group of mountain palms, which, if I am not mistaken, was entirely unknown previous to my South American travels. Almost all species of the family of palms grow on the plains or low grounds, in a mean temperature of between 22° and 24° Reaumur (81°.5 and 86°, Fahr.)j rarely ascending so high as 1900 English feet on the declivities of the Andes : but in the mountain palms to which I have alluded, the beautiful waxpalm (Ceroxylon andicola), the Palmeto of Azufral at the Pass of Quindiu (Oreodoxa frigida), and the reed-like Kunthia montana (Caiia de la Vibora) of Pasto, attain elevations between 6400 and 9600 English feet above the level of the sea, where the thermometer often sinks at night as low as 4°.8 and 6° of Reaumur (42°.8 |