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Show 360 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. cultivated, S. sieboldiana. From the southern temperate zone I know only two willows described by Thunberg (S. hirsuta and S. mucronata); they grow by the side of Protea argentea (which has itself very much the physiognomy of a willow), on the banks of the Orange River, and their leaves and young shoots form the food of the hippopotamus. Willows are entirely wanting in Australia and the neighboring islands. {a1) p. 244.-u Myrtacere." An elegant form, with stiff, shining, thickly set, generally unindented, small leaves, studded with pellucid dots. Myrtacere give a peculiar character to three districts of the earth's surface: the South of Europe, particularly the calcareous and trachytic islands which rise above the surface of the Mediterranean ; the continent of New Holland, adorned with Eucalyptus, Metrosideros, and Leptospermum; and an intertropical region, part of which is low, and part from nine to ten thousand feet high (about 9590 to 10,660 English), in the Andes of South America. This mountain district, called in Quito the district of the Paramos, is entirely covered with trees which have a myrtle-like aspect and character, even though they may not all belong to the natural family of Myrtacere. Here, at the above-named elevation, grow the Escallonia myrtilloides, E. tubar, Simplocos alstonia, some species of Myrica, and the beautiful Myrtus microphylla which we have figured in the Plantes equinoxiales, t. i. p. 21, pl. iv. We found it growing on mica slate, and extending to an elevation of more than ten thousand English feet, on the Paramo de Saraguru, near Vinayacu and Alto de Pulla, which is adorned with so many lovely alpine flowering plants. Myrtus myrsinoides even extends in the Paramo de Guamani up to 10,500 (11,190 English) feet. Of the 40 species of the Genus Myrtus which we collected in the equinoctial zone, and of which 37 were undescribed, much the greater part belonged, however to the plains and lower mountains. From the mild tropical mountain climate of Mexico we brought back only a single species (Myrtus xalapensis); but the Tierra templada, towards the Volcano of Orizaba, must no doubt contain several more. We found M. maritima near Acapulco, quite on the sea-coast of the Pacific. |