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OSMANIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
Call No. fT'/ ^f Accession No. 3 3 <* 

Author 




This book should be-reVumfd on or before the date 
last marked below. 



THE GEOGRAPHY 

OF 

PLANTS 

UY 

M. . IIARDV. P.Sc. 



OXFORD 
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 



Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C. 4 

GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON 
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS OAPE TOWN 

Geoffrey Cumberlege, Publisher to the University 



FIRST PUBLISHED 1920 
REPRINTED 1925, 1935, 1946, 1952 

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 



PREFACE 

IN the preface to Dr. Marcel Hardy's Introduction to 
Plant Geography, Professor Herbertson wrote, * it will 
be followed by a more advanced book '. This ' more 
advanced book ' is the volume now published. 

Many causes have contributed to delay its appearance : 
the death of Professor Herbertson ; the departure of the 
author to South America; the War and. its after ipatji, 
which have rendered so extremely difficult everything 
connected with the publication of books : but the proofs 
have been fully revised, and many new photographs 
have been inserted. 

It may be taken as in some sort an expansion of 
Part III of the earlier work, since the slight ' survey of 
the continents ' given there has served as the plan for 
the new book, and has been expanded into a full dis- 
cussion of the conditions in which plants flourish, and 
their distribution in the great geographical divisions 
of the earth. An index of the plants mentioned is 
appended, with the scientific or popular name, as the 
case may be : where the author has used a precise name, 
the exact equivalent is given ; where a genus only is 
indicated, the corresponding generic term is set down, 
unless some particular species is peculiarly characteristic 



iv PREFACE 

of the region described, when the full name of that 
species is added. 

Thanks are most gratefully offered to the Belgian 
Government, Professor A. W. W. Brown, Col. Coachman, 
Mrs. Cross, Miss Czaplicka, Mrs. Doyne, Sir S. Eardley 
Wilmot, Mrs. Edwards, Captain C. T. Ffoulkes, Sir H. H. 
Johnston, M. J. Lagarde, Mr. W. Lloyd, Mr. H. M. Loucas, 
Mr. C. W. Mathers, Messrs. Seeley, Service & Co., the 
Controller of H.M. Ordnance Survey, Professor A. 
Donaldson Smith, Sir Aurel Stein, Mr. M. S. Thompson, 
Sir Everard Im Thurn, Mrs. Traill, Messrs. Underwood 
and Underwood, the Visual Instruction Committee, 
Mrs. Watkins, Mr. C. M. Woodward for the loan of 
photographs from which the illustrations have been 
made, and to Miss MacMunn for most kindly reading 
through the final proof. 

Miss Kirkaldy very kindly made herself responsible 
for seeing the book through the press. 

OXFORD, 1920. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

ASIA 1 

Tundra West Siberia Eastern Siberia Amuria, Korea, 
Sakhalin, Hokkaido ( Yezo) Kamchatka Indo-China 
Japan Eastern Margin of the Great Central Plateau 
Manchuria Northern China Central China Malay Archi- 
pelago India The Indus Desert Iran Mesopotamia 
Asia Minor Turan Turkestan Highlands Kirghiz 
Steppe - Siberian Highlands Mongolia Tibet andPamirs- 
Teaidam. 

CHAPTER II 

NORTH AMERICA 75 

Tundra Region The Great Canadian Forest -.Great Lake 
Region Appalachian Region West of the Appalachians 
Southern States -Texas -Great Staked Plain The Grass 
Belt The Western Mountains Interment Plateaus of the 
Pacific California The American Deserts Lower Cali- 
fornia and Northern Sonora The Mexican Plateau 
Atlantic Lowlands of Mexico and Southern Mexico 
Florida and the West Indies. 

CHAPTER III 

SOUTH AMERICA . 124 

Central America Orinoco Wanos Guiana Highlands 
Guiana Lowlands The Amazon Basin Flood Forests -Caa- 
guazu Brazilian Coast Forest Belt East Brazilian High- 
landsNorthern Portion Southern Brazil Highlands-^ 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

M.itfco Oroso and West Goyaz Bolivian Llanos Cbaco 
Alto Parana-Paraguay Paraguay and Lower Parana 
Marshes Western Argentine Wastes The Pampa 
Uruguay and Entre Rios Patagonia Semi-desert South 
Patagonia Fuego The Andes Eastern Andes; The 
Montana Argentine subtropical Andes Dry Argentine 
Cordillera Western Andes Peruvian Andes Atacama 
Central Chile -South Chilian Rain-forests Extreme South 
and FuoffO Punas. 



CHAPTER IV 

AUSTRALIA 171 

Northern Point of the Tableland Thornwood Tropical 
Savana Scrubland - The Brigalow Scrub The Mallee 
Scrub The Mulga Scrub Great Central Desert Murray- 
Darling Valley and South Australia Mediterranean Por- 
tions of Southern Australia Savana Woods South-eastern 
Temperate Rain-forest Northern Portion of the Eastern 
Highlands- Tasmania New Guinea New Caledonia New 
Zealand Pacific Islands. 



CHAPTER V 

AFRICA .195 

Mediterranean Africa- The Atlas Intermont Plateaus The 
African Islands Sahara Sudan Semi-Desert Sudanese 
Savana Futa-Jallon Egyptian Sudan- Abyssinia Abys- 
sino-Eritrean Foot-hills Yemen - Somaliland LightForests 
and Parks of Tropical Africa "West African Coast : Guinea 
West African Plateaus The Congo Basin Angola East 
African Mountain Region The Zambezi basin and Unyam- 
wezi Gazaland and Mozambique Boschveld Hoogeveld 
Drakenberg -Kalahari -Damara Desert Karroo Region 
The Karroos - Southern Belt of South Africa Knysna 
Forest Kaffraria Madagascar. 



CONTENTS vii 

PAGE 

CHAPTER VI 

EUROPE 250 

The Arctic Region Arctic-Alpine Tundras and Fjelds 
Northern Europe Russian Steppe Hungary Balkan 
Peninsula Caucasia Mediterranean Iilyrian Karst Po 
Valley Central Europe - Western Europe Atlantic Fringe 
Britain. 

CHAPTER VII 
CONCLUSION > .... 302 

GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX 308 

INDEX OF PLANT NAMES 315 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FIG. PAGE 

1. Physical Features of Asia 3 

2. Mean Annual Rainfall of Asia 4 

3. Seasonal Distribution of Rainfall in Asia ... 5 

4. Mean Temperature of Asia in January reduced to sea-level 6 

5. Mean Temperature of Asia in July reduced to sea-level . 7 

6. Vegetation of Asia 8 

7. Siberian Tundra (Photo : Miss Czaplicka) .... 9 

8. The Sundarbans (Photo : Sir S. Eardley Wilmot) . . 20 

9. A Chinese Rice-field (Photo : Underwood and Underwood) 22 

10. The Manchurian Steppe and its Camps (Photo : Prof. A. 

Donaldson Smith) 24 

11. Undergrowth of Evergreen Equatorial Forest in Solomon 

Islands (Photo : C. M. Woodward) . . . .33 

12. A River Scene in Burma (Photo : Sir S. Eardley Wilmot) 37 

13. The Himalayas, from Darjiling (Photo : Visual Instruction 

Committee) 40 

14. An Oasis in the DesertIran 46 

15. The Jubailah Creek Mesopotamia 52 

16. The Top of the Last Pass (Photo : Sir A. Stein) . .71 

17. Dal Lake, Kashmir (Photo : Sir A. Stein) .... 74 

18. Physical Features of North America 76 

19. Mean Annual Rainfall of North America . . . .77 

20. Seasonal Distribution of Rainfall in North America . . 78 

21. 22. Mean Temperature of North America in January and 

July reduced to sea-level 79 

23. Vegetation of North America 80 

24. Spruce Forest on a river flat Canada (Photo : C. W. 

Mathers) 82 

25. The Canadian Prairie (Photo : C. W. Mathers) . 96 

26. The prairie passing into a brush of summer-green bushes 

and small birches 99 

27. Pine Forest bordering meadow, Rocky Mountains (Photo : 

A. W. W. Brown) 101 



x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FIG. PAGE 

28. View in the Rocky Mountains, showing pines and Douglas 

firs (Photo : A. W. W. Brown) 103 

29. Big trees in the Coastal Forests of British Columbia . 105 

30. Aspen Forest in Colorado (Photo : A. W. W. Brown) . 106 

31. Sage-brush, Colorado (Photo: A. W. W. Brown) . . 109 

32. A typical timbered canon in the Colorado region (Photo : 

A. W. W. Brown) Ill 

33. Dry cereus scrub on steep slopes of a gorge Mexico 

(P}u>to : A. W. W. Brown) 115 

34. Taxodium trees Sacromonte Amecameca (Mexico) (Photo: 

A. W. W. Brown) 118 

35. Dry scrub and cereus-trees on arid slopes Tuland valley, 

Mexico (Photo : A. W. W. Brown) . . . .121 

36. In a Florida Swamp (Photo : Underwood and Underwood) 122 

37. Undergrowth of a tidal ' bayou' in intertropical country . 126 

38. Physical Features of South America 128 

39. 40. Mean Temperature of South America in January and 

July reduced to sea-level 129 

41. Mean Annual Rainfall of South America .... 129 

42. Seasonal Distribution of Rainfall in South America . . 129 

43. Vegetation of South America 130 

44. Tangle of Mangrove roots at low tide British Guiana 

(Photo : Sir E. Im Thurn) 134 

45. Swamp Forest with rgots of trees sticking out above flood 

level 137 

46. Forest cutting - Eastern Brazil (Photo : A. W. W. Brown) 139 

47. Araucaria imbricafa (Chile pine) 144 

48. Brazilian Savana, Matto Grosso 146 

49. Paraguayan Forest near Guayra Falls . . . .150 

50. Campos in North Paraguay 151 

51. Subtropical Rain Forest, Paraguay 152 

52. Palm Grove in Corrientes, Argentina (Photo : A. W. W. 

Brown) 153 

53. Chanar and dry cereus scrub, W. Argentina (Photo : 

A. W. W. Brown) 156 

54. Cactus on the dry slopes of the Andes (Photo : Underwood 

and Underwood) ........ 167 

55. A Eucalyptus-clad gorge in the mountains N.E. Australia 172 

56. Physical features of Australia 173 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi 

FIG. PAGE 

57. Mean Annual Rainfall of Australia 174 

58. Savana landscape with nucleus of a settlement . . 175 

59. Seasonal Distribution of Rainfall in Australia . . .176 

60. 61. Mean Temperature of Australia in January and July 

reduced to sea-level 177 

62. Vegetation of Australia 177 

63. A station in the Savana Country, N. Australia . . . 181 

64. Savana landscape in E. Australia 183 

65. Gum-tree or Eucalyptus Forest in Australia . . .184 

66. Eucalyptus Forest cleared for wheat harvest S. Australia 186 

67. Savana plain and timbered slopes E. Australia . . 187 

68. Tree-ferns in a gully, Blue Mountains, S.E. Australia . 190 

69. Kauri Logs and Forest, N. Zealand 192 

70. Pineapple Plantation 194 

71. Physical Features of Africa 196 

72. Mean Annual Rainfall of Africa 197 

73. Seasonal Distribution of Rainfall in Africa . . .197 

74. Moan Temperature of Africa in January and July reduced 

to sea-level . .197 

75. Vegetation of Africa 198 

76. Gorge in Mountains of Algeria (Photo: A. W. W. Brown) 200 

77. Atlas Cedars Algeria (Photo: A. W. W. Brown) . . 201 

78. Reg Desert Sinai 206 

79. Semi-desert Nigeria (Photo : Capt. C. Ffoulkes) . . 209 

80. Open Brush- Nigeria (Photo : Capt. C. Ffoulkes) . .210 

81. High Savana Brush- Nigeria (Photo: Capt. C. Ffoulkes) 212 

82. In the drier Scrubland of the Egyptian Sudan . . . 215 
88. Floating Blocks of Sudd (Photo: M.S.Thompson) . . 216 

84. The Desert near Rogel (Photo : M. S. Thompson) . . 217 

85. Coffee Plantation British East Africa . . . .218 

86. Somaliland : Characteristic Stony and Thorn Country 

(Photo : Sir II. II. Johnston) 222 

87. Forest Vegetation, River Limbe, Nigeria .... 225 

88. Tropical Forest in the Congo State (Belgian Government) 229 

89. The King of the African Savana,, Baobab Tree . . . 232 

90. Railway cutting in a Tropical Forest S.E. Africa . . 233; 

91. Settlers in Bush Country, Zambezi 237 

92. The Karroo (Mrs, A. J. Edwards) 243 

93. Silver Trees 245 



xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

I'lQ. PAGE 

94. Traveller's Trees . 249 

95. Physical Features of Europe 251 

96. Mean Annual Rainfall of Europe 252 

97. Regions of Europe receiving more or less than 6" of rain- 

fall during summer 3 months 253 

98. Regions of Europe receiving more or less than 6" of rain- 

fall during winter 3 months 253 

99. 100. Mean Temperature of Europe in January and July 

reduced to sea-level 254 

101. Vegetation of Europe 255 

102. Clump of Cork Oaks in S. France (Photo : J. Lagarde) . 256 

103. Plmts pinea, S. France (Photo : J. Lagarde) . . . 260 

104. Snow-bound Tundra (Photo : Miss Czaplicka) . . . 262 

105. View in Southern Norway typical northern forest of 

Europe 266 

106. Bilberry Moor 269 

10'7, Characteristic Vegetation Serbia ..... 275 

108. Olive Grove S. France (Photo: J. Lagarde) . . .279 

109. Live Oak Garique on limestone S. of France (Photo: 

J. Lagarde) 281 

110. A barren limestone plain, or carso S. of France (Photo : 

J. Lagarde) . 285 

111. Limestone slopes on the Adriatic (Photo: A.W.W. Brown) 286 

112. Arundel Beeches (Photo : A. W. W. Brown) . . .292 

113 Pine Wood Surrey (Photo : A. W. W Brown) . . 295 

114 Forest clearing planted with rye, bordered with elms 

(Photo: A.W.W. Brown) 298 

115. Turf-cutting on an Irish bog 300 



CHAPTER I 
ASIA 

THE stupendous size and compact shape of this greatest 
of continents are features which by themselves are bound 
to exercise the strongest control on its vegetation by 
determining the climate. The centre of this vast body 
of land is so far removed from the regulating influences 
of large sheets of water that it must, of necessity, be dry, 
extreme in climate, and barren ; and life, whether vege- 
table, animal, or human, must be reduced to a minimum. 
Asia is a land of extremes. Broadly speaking, life is dis- 
tributed, starting from a dead centre, in concentric belts 
of increasing density. In this very general arrangement, 
however, the fact of its excentric symmetry with re- 
gard to the Equator introduces a first and fundamental 
irregularity. 

The northern shores penetrate far into the polar 
circle, while the southern coast is bathed by tropical seas. 
All other things being equal, such a difference in the 
amount of atmospheric heat is bound to be expressed by 
a difference in the amount and the character of life on 
the two sides. The exaggeration of summer heat and 
winter cold of the atmosphere over the far inland parts 
initiates corresponding movements of attraction and re- 
pulsion of the surrounding masses of air, or, in other 
words, large cyclones and anticyclones which have been 
termed monsoons : the rhythmic alternation of these 
forms the pulse of that vast body. As may be expected, 
the inflowing summer winds are, on the whole, moist 

B 



2 ASIA 

and beneficial, while the outflowing winter winds are 
dry and harmful. 

Again, according to their origin, the inflowing winds 
produce unequal effects. Those called in from the 
warm Indian and Pacific Oceans are naturally laden 
with moisture which, on cooling, is condensed over the 
southern and eastern margins of the continent, thus 
inducing vigorous plant life. The air from the north 
and east, on the other hand, easily saturated at low 
temperatures, becomes gradually warmer and drier as 
it rushes inland, yielding but scant moisture to the low- 
lying plains and plateaus. A hardy but not luxuriant 
type of vegetation is the expression of such climatic 
conditions. 

Another inequality arises from the situation of the 
neighbouring continents of Europe and Africa, which 
screen off any moisture from the western quarters, while 
the more favoured east lies open to the beneficial 
influences of the oceans. Thus the arid centre extends 
westward up to the uncertain borders of the adjacent 
land masses. 

These broad features of the distribution of life on the 
surface of Asia, by the accident of shape, size, and 
position, are further emphasized by the nature of the 
relief. The central portions are raised thousands of feet 
above sea-level in vast plateaus which are fringed by 
an unbroken rim of still loftier mountain ranges. On 
that account, the excessive heating of the interior 
exaggerates the landward influx of air in summer 
while the intense cooling in winter adds impetus to the 
outward flowing winds. The limits of the barren in- 
terior are drawn more sharply by the screen of high 
mountains surrounding them. At the same time, the 
lofty ranges, such as those which cross the continent 



ASIA 



3 



from the Caspian to the Sea of Okhotsk, drain the winds 
of their last traces of moisture. 

This moisture, deposited as spring rain or, in large 
proportion, as winter snow, causes a fairly continuous 
line of highland oases, the more marvellous in contrast 



Heights in feet above sea-level 
0-600 
600-3000 
3000-EQOO 
Over 12000 




FIG. 1. Physical Features of Asia. 

with the surrounding lowland deserts. At the same 
time, the snow-fed streams, before losing themselves 
among the sands of the plains, fertilize a stretch of 
country at the foot of the mountains ; and of this alluvial 
belt, even before the dawn of history, advantage was 
taken by man. The influence of these lofty Asiatic 

B 2 



4 ASIA 

chains is thus seen to be double, as being expressed in 
abundant summer pastures on the upper slopes, and in 
gardens and winter pastures on the lower slopes and the 
adjacent belt. Correspondingly there originates a double 
influence on man and animals in quest of food : lirst, 
a yearly migration of populations between the lowlands 




FIG. 2. Mean Annual Rainfall of Asia. 

and the highlands, between the drought and the snow: 
second, larger movements of nations along the fertile 
piedmont belts, which naturally became the highways 
of history, as peoples were forced by various causes 
to migrate, and trekked between the deserts on one hand 
and the mountain wildernesses on the other. 



ASIA 5 

In brief, then, the distribution of plant life in Asia, 
which, at a first glance, appears to be in widening belts 
of increasing density, has to be further analysed, the 
north being poorer than the south and the west than 
the east. The south-eastern quarter is the centre of 
radiation of plant life for the whole continent. Of the 



o 500 IPO o Mile. 
o 300 1000 isoo Km. 




FIG. 8. Seasonal Distribution of Rainfall in Asia, 
two western quarters, the northern, having more water 
and less heat than the southern, is also more luxuriant. 

Tundra. Along the Arctic Ocean, Asia possesses an 
enormous development of coast-line involving about one- 
third of the parallel of 70 N. This coast-line lies, on 
the whole, much nearer the pole than the corresponding 



6 



ASIA 



shores of the mainland of North America : one would 
therefore expect to see a correspondingly greater ex- 
tension inland of the cold treeless desert called the 
tundra. As a fact, however, it is not so; the barren 
grounds of North America reach much farther south, 
especially towards the extreme east and west, and when 




JANUARY 



FIG. 4. Mean Temperature of Asia in January reduced to Sea-level. 

the coast-line advances poleward or retreats southward, 
the accompanying belt of tundra follows the same oscilla- 
tions. This broad fringe covers a low-lying undulated 
land, interrupted by no high hills, but indented by wide 
estuaries and marshy deltas. 

Two main forms of tundra are recognized, the moss 



TUNDRA 



tundra and the lichen tundra. The moss tundra is the 
moister kind, and is formed of peat-hills and puddles. 
The peat-hills are enormous spongy cushions, built up by 
the slow accumulations of gradually decomposing mosses : 
they are frozen inside, and have a velvety covering of 




JULY 



Fia. 5. Mean Temperature in July reduced to Sea-level. 

straight-stemmed mosses, among which a few dwarf 
flowering plants are sometimes scattered, and in between 
the mounds wind the marshy tracts or puddles, often 
grown over with peat-moss. 

The lichen tundra has a drier soil, but requires an 
abundance of rainfall, drizzles, mists, and atmospheric 



8 



ASIA 



moisture, and, when it is overgrown with low shrubs, 
may become a heath. 

Among the most curious features of these arctic land- 
scapes rank the ' polygonal floors,' or floors of hardened 




I 'Tundra 4> Lofty Mountain dD 3 Tai&a crPine Forest EMI, Steppe 
Cool DeciduousF. Mediterranean MM. SunimerRainF 
Mbn&oonfr Equatorial E < , rr^-^ ^ 



FIG, 6. Vegetation of Asia. 

mud with cracks arranged in polygonal patterns. Out 
of these slits the lines of tiny plants arise in quaint 
devices not unlike fancy box edging. 
The monotony and desolation of the landscape are 



TUNDRA 



9 



broken now and then by veritable gardens of gorgeous 
flowers which colonize the warm and well-drained 
slopes exposed squarely to the rays of the low sun of 
summer. The unusual brilliancy of colour in the 
blossoms as well as the leaves and stems of the small 
herbs in arctic and alpine regions is associated with the 
presence in the plant-body of certain substances protec- 
tive against exposure. 




FIG, 7. Siberian Tundra. 

The development of peat in the marshes of the Siberian 
tundra, being dependent on the moisture of the air and 
the length of the growing season, is not so important as 
might be thought at first. Heather or ling plays but 
an inconspicuous part, and our common peat-moss is of 
restricted occurrence. 

There is little resource for the human being in such 



10 ASIA 

regions. A few berries are all that man can gather, 
and cultivation is out of the question. Hunting and 
fishing are the primary occupations, but a most useful 
asset is found in the reindeer, whose every part and 
product becomes precious, while it supports itself on what 
lichens and mosses the tundra can supply. Man, there- 
fore, is obliged to follow his wild herds, which he could 
not feed in a permanent and circumscribed place of 
abode. 

The tundra extends to the higher lands or plateaus 
which stretch southward, such as those of Siverma, 
Yangkan, Verkhoyansk, Kolyma, and Anadyr, which 
recall the fjelds of Scandinavia. 

West Siberia. Between the Urals and the Yenissei, 
north of the fifty-fifth parallel, the land is very low and 
flat, rising less than 100 feet in about 600 miles. It is 
regularly flooded by the large rivers Ob and Irtish and 
their tributaries, which have built high banks along their 
courses and thus stopped the natural drainage of the 
surface waters, so that it is covered by vast and im- 
passable swamps, which remain frozen for six months 
of the year. 

The climate is uniformly cold and damp, though the 
rainfall remains under twenty inches ; mists and fogs are 
frequent, and snow lies on the ground till late in spring. 
Such a region is naturally the battle-ground between 
the swamp vegetation and the forest. 

The tundra which surrounds the vast estuaries of the 
Ob and Tas gradually passes into morasses of a more tem- 
perate type, not unlike those of Ireland and Scotland, and 
consisting of peat-mosses. These freely alternate -With 
swamps of reeds, rushes, and sedges, especially towards 
the south. The forest is restricted to the best-drained 
rising groundsgenerally gentle swellings, and the banks 



WEST SIBERIA 11 

thrown up by the rivers and is thus constantly inter- 
sected by innumerable marshy pastures, reedy moors, 
and peat-bogs. The vegetation is a mosaic of forests, 
meadows, and swamps. 

These conditions of climate and soil are only suitable 
for conifers and a few hardy representatives of the broad- 
leaved trees, such as aspens and birches, willows, and 
alders. Siberian larches and spruces are the main con- 
stituents of these forests, the latter predominating on 
wet soils, and making dark, dense forests with little 
undergrowth. The lighter kinds of forest afford a 
shelter for northern types of plants, such as andromeda, 
several species of small rhododendrons, &c., a few herbs 
chiefly of the marsh-dwelling types, mosses, and ferns. 

This vast extent of wooded marshes offers serious 
obstacles to travelling, and can best be crossed in winter, 
when it is all frozen and under snow. The dampness of 
the climate makes it unpleasant, more especially on 
account of the swarms of mosquitoes, which are an 
unmixed nuisance. The freezing of the waterways and 
seas to the north renders the marketing of the timber 
costly and difficult. It is only, therefore, during winter 
that a few tribes of Ostiaks frequent this locality to find 
in it a shelter against the terrible icy gales which sweep 
across the tundra, and to trap the fur-bearing animals 
when their coat is at its best. The timber as yet remains 
untouched, except on the southern margin. 

The human population, therefore, remains confined 
to a few settlements along the main rivers, living largely 
on fish, getting the timber from the forests on the banks 
and resorting to a local kind of agriculture, which is. 
however, necessarily hampered by late frosts and icy 
mists. The backwoods and swamps are hardly ever 
visited by man. 



12 ASIA 

Towards the west, the foot-hills and terraces along 
the Urals rise comparatively quickly, and the vegetation 
at once assumes a more varied aspect, including pines 
and firs, larches and spruces, luxuriant meadows and 
other hill-pastures. 

Eastern Siberia. The country between the Ob-Yenis- 
sei divide and the Lena is fairly uniform. It is a low 
plateau, above which tower tabular volcanic heights. 
East of the Lena, however, the plateau rises gradually 
amid a somewhat broken landscape towards the crescent- 
shaped edge of the Stanovoi. 

Compared with western Siberia, the eastern region 
is well drained, and possesses a drier and more ex- 
treme climate : indeed, the coldest winters and the 
hottest summers known on earth are to be found there, 
the range between the averages of the two seasons 
being 120 F. 

The tundra, which covers the broad margin of the 
Arctic Ocean, sends spurs further south, along the most 
important ridges, similar to the fjelds of Scandinavia ; 
but the formation of swamps and peat-bogs is limited 
here by reason of the extreme climate, the scanty 
rainfall, and the good drainage, and thus the vegetation 
is essentially one of forests of conifers. 

Beech and oak could not live here, so the different 
species of conifers share the ground among themselves. 
The Scots and the arolla pine prefer the dry, sunny slopes 
and the lighter soils. The larch forms, on the cooler 
slopes and in the hollows, a light cover, which favours 
the development of a dense, often impenetrable, under- 
growth of shrubs and herbs. The spruce occurs mainly 
in moist situations, where it forms a dark, heavy canopy, 
under which the ground remains almost plantless, 
covered with a thick mat of needles and mosses. 



EASTERN SIBERIA 13 

Siberian firs and stone (arolla) pines are also found 
in the east. 

The lower vegetation differs very little from that of 
northern and central Europe, indeed, a large propor- 
tion of the species of bushes and herbs are common to 
Europe and Siberia. One would find bramble and wild 
rose, whortle- and other berry bushes, even aconites, 
monkshoods, geraniums, and stately umbelliferae in the 
pastures and meadows, but the ling is absent. 

Despite the prevalence of forests, however, tree- 
growth is not luxuriant. Siberian forests are stunted, 
and the trees, hung and padded with mosses and lichens, 
reach no great height or thickness, but bear the 
imprint of the inimical conditions of the climate. 
They are also confined to relatively low altitudes. 
Thus, on the Lena, by 64 N. they stop below 700 feet. 
North of that latitude, the forest growth becomes 
increasingly scattered and dwarfed, pastures and 
meadows, moors, and stretches of tundra filling the 
intervening spaces. This is a condition similar to that 
in the backwoods of the northern Canadian forest, to 
which this east Siberian taiga corresponds exactly. 

Thanks to the hot summer, coupled with a moderate 
rainfall, northern agriculture is possible in eastern 
Siberia. Dairy-farming and stock-breeding find there 
an excellent field ; and grain crops are capable of a great 
development. 

Amuria Korea Sakhalin Hokkaido (Yezo). This is 
on the whole, a mountainous region lying to the north of 
the Ilchuri-Alin and the Little Khingan, and including 
the basin of the Ussuri and the upper basin of the 
Sungari. It consists mainly of a series of ranges and 
valleys parallel with the coast-line, and contains the 
broad valleys of the lower and middle Amur. 



14 ASIA 

The climate may be described as cool temperate, 
although winters are very hard and protracted. The 
rivers, especially in the northern part, are ice-bound for 
four or five months in the year ; but the region, on the 
whole, enjoys the benefit of the summer monsoon, which 
gives it a fair rain-supply. The conditions are temperate 
enough to permit of the occurrence of broad-leaved, de- 
ciduous forests of a central and north-European type. 
This is essentially a timber country, and the lower forest- 
belt is similar to our oak and beech zones. It consists 
of mixed forests, including the Mongolian oak, Man- 
churian kinds of walnut, hazel-nut, barberry, and vine, 
pines, maples, elms, lime-trees, and rowans : the Man- 
churian shrub dimorphanthus is freely grown in our 
gardens. This broad-leaved vegetation is, however, re- 
stricted to valleys, lower slopes, and foot-hills. In the 
mountains, the resinous forests naturally predominate, but 
they are also of a mixed type, including larches, cedars, 
pines, and tsugas, with birches and aspens, and giving 
the usual aspect of northern temperate mountains. In 
the broad valleys, the Amur and its tributaries flow amid 
luxuriant pastures of rich grass and tall herbs, among 
which umbellifers are most remarkable. 

In spite of its hard winters, Amuria is a fertile land, 
replete with possibilities. Cattle-breeding, dairying, and 
mixed farming certainly find there as promising a field 
as in eastern Canada, with which this region has much 
in common : all northern cereals and green crops 
accommodate themselves to this climate. In Amuria 
proper the timber is well preserved, but in lower 
Manchuria, the western slopes of the Sungari hills and 
mountains have been largely deforested by the Chinese 
settlers, with the usual disastrous consequences. 

Though in latitude it corresponds to central Europe, 



AMURIA KOREA SAKHALIN HOKKAIDO 15 

Sakhalin has the same extreme climate with severe and 
prolonged winters, a fact due to the cold sea-current 
which bathes its shores, and to the continental north- 
west winds. The island is thrown into a succession of 
longitudinal valleys and ridges, and is entirely wooded, 
except for the floor of the valleys and the naked ridges. 
Here again, owing to the cold, damp, foggy atmosphere 
and bad natural drainage, the floor of the valleys is 
swampy, and peaty bogs of great depth recall the high 
moors of Ireland and Scotland, indeed, the bleak coast- 
belt seems to be an outlier of the subarctic tundra. 

The Pacific slopes show the influence of the cold sea- 
currents and winds in their mixed coniferous forests of 
larches, pines, and spruces. Numbers of dead trees are 
left standing, and the litter of dead branches, together 
with the dense tangle of brambles, roses, and shrubs, 
make these forests almost impenetrable. 

As a contrast, at a moderate elevation, the interior 
slopes, especially on the south-west, shelter a temperate 
vegetation of a mild character with broad-leaved forests, 
including walnuts, elms, maples, vines, yews, and even 
bambus six feet high, with fine hydrangeas and shrubby 
bilberries, recalling the vegetation of Japan. Similarly 
a verdant park -landscape, recalling that of Amuria even 
in its bogs, lies along the margins of the rivers of the 
inland valleys. Sakhalin proves thus to be a land of 
contrasts in its vegetation as well as in its climate. 

It may remain chiefly a timber country, but it is 
possible that a good drainage may remove the blanket 
of peat from the valleys, and open them at least to 
grazing and dairying industries. 

Yezo, the northern island of -Japan, shares in some 
measure the conditions of south Sakhalin and the 
adjacent mainland, and is also densely wooded. 



16 ASIA 

Okhotsk Region. Beyond the edge of the east 
Siberian plateaus, which extend almost to the eastern 
coast-line, the land sinks rapidly down to a narrow 
coastal shelf, and is carved into a series of parallel 
ridges, between which run short torrential streams. 

This region naturally lies under the moderating 
influence of the neighbouring seas, and the moist and 
mild winds thereof; so that the rainfall is higher here 
than inland. At the same time, it is sheltered from 
the cold blasts from the interior by the edge of the 
Stanovoi. There is, in some measure, an approximation 
to the climate of southern Alaska, and the vegetation 
includes some of the types of plants of the American 
continent. 

From the ice-fields and lichen moors of the edge of 
the plateau one descends into a belt of elfin woods, 
formed by a dwarf variety of our European stone-pine. 
Lower down, the slopes are clad with prosperous and 
dense forests of mixed conifers, among which American 
species are to be found ; besides the dahurica larch there 
occur two kinds of spruces and one of tsuga fir ; but 
conditions are still too hard for broad-leaved trees. 
Only birches and alders, poplars and willows, are to 
be found along the river courses ; in the undergrowth 
the Kamchatka rhododendron forms dense bushes. 

The lower valleys and the coastal shelf, lying most of 
the time under the belts of cold air and mists which 
settle down from the neighbouring heights, expand into 
dreary, quasi-arctic swamps, in the middle of which, along 
the rivers, run ribbons of rich green pastures. 

Kamchatka. More desolate still is Kamchatka, which 
occupies, at the eastern extremity of Eurasia, a position 
corresponding to that of the British Isles, on the west 
between the 50th and 60th north parallels. 



KAMCHATKA 17 

Kamchatka, however, is swept by icy winds from 
every part of the north especially by the north-east 
gales. Its coast is bathed by the cold sea-currents from 
Bering Straits, and these give it a climate correspond- 
ing to that of Lapland, which it resembles in its vegeta- 
tion. Parallel longitudinal ridges, from which arise very 
short torrents, form the core of the peninsula. 

The characteristic vegetation is represented by elfin 
and stunted woods. Impenetrable brushes of gnarled 
alders and cedars clothe most of the slopes, and pass 
upwards to dwarf elfin bushes. Between this and the 
naked ridges stretch ragged carpets of alpine meadows. 
Birch woods, sometimes very dense, sometimes sparse, 
rise on the foot slopes and clothe the gentle rises between 
the lower valleys. It is only along the streams in the 
sheltered valleys that a really pleasant vegetation is 
found. There extend prosperous meadows, with patches 
of tall umbellifers, with groves of poplars, birches, and 
alders, and shrubberies of rhododendrons. This open 
natural park is, however, skirted by swamps, which 
unite to form the barren, treeless moors of the coast. 
Wild sheep are to be found here, as in Alaska and 
Columbia. This inhospitable land, infested in summer 
with mosquitoes, and lying under snow for nearly two 
thirds of the year, is suited for little else than sheep 
and cattle of the hardiest type. Agriculture is, indeed, 
impossible. 

Indo-China. The lofty parallel ridges, separated by 
steep and narrow gorges, which form the approach to 
south-eastern Tibet, diverge, fan-like, in three distinct 
chains : the eastern chain of Annam, the central Malay 
chain, which extends near the Equator, and the western- 
most or Arakan chain : they include the plains of Siam 
and Burma. Just south of the tropic, their convergence 

1159.1 



18 ASIA 

builds up an uninterrupted and massive system of parallel 
folds extending from Assam to Yun-nan. 

The entire region, except the Malay Peninsula, lies 
within the monsoon area, and is, therefore, characterized 
by the annual rhythm of the dry and the wet seasons. 
The rainfall is abundant and the temperature typically 
tropical. It is therefore to be expected that vegetation, 
while exhibiting tropical luxuriance, should reflect the 
well-marked monsoon rhythm: this, however, is per- 
fectly expressed only in part of the lowlands of Siam 
and Burma, The landscapes which bear the stamp of the 
monsoon are here : (1) the savana, corresponding with 
that of the Sudan and South America. It is best repre- 
sented on the low hinterland plateaus of Siam and Laos, 
and to a less degree in Burma : (2) the drier and lighter 
tropical forests which shed their leaves in the dry season. 
Teak is, in eastern Asia, the typical tree of such forests : 
(3) the jungle, a dry and tall deciduous scrub, some 
thirty feet in height, which represents here the ' caatinga 1 
of Brazil. Besides these, and forming transitions between 
the teak forest, the jungle, and the savana, occur count- 
less varieties of light tropical woods, either evergreen or 
deciduous, continuous or distributed in more or less 
extensive patches. In fact, a great portion of what is 
called jungle in Indo-China would be termed savana, 
bush-savana, tree-savana in the Sudan or Brazil. 

The distribution of these monsoon formations seems 
to depend largely on local circumstances of soil and 
relief. The teak forests are best represented in the 
upper inland plains and foot-hills of the Irawadi, as 
well as on the marginal foot-hills of the middle Mekong. 
Savanas and jungles are representative of lower Burma 
and the low plateau of Siam, but their development is 
limited both on the seaward and on the highland side 



1NDO-CHINA 19 

by conditions of soil and climate. In Indo-China indeed 
two main landscapes strike the eye of the traveller : the 
rugged mass of wooded mountains through which swift 
and mighty streams have carved their deep channels, 
and the low swamps rapidly encroaching on the sea by 
means of the colossal deposits which are spread broad- 
cast by the rivers when in flood. All the big rivers, 
Si-kiang, Song-ho, Mekong, Menam, Salwin, and Irawadi, 
thus create vast belts of half -emerged swamps, covered 
by an inextricable network of sluggish, muddy, and ever- 
changing tidal waterways, like the sundarbans of the 
Ganges. On these shaky muds have sprung into exis- 
tence low, gloomy, impenetrable tangles of evergreen 
swamp forests, corresponding to the vargem or igapii 
of the Amazon, with their canopy almost resting on the 
water during the monsoon period. An excess of ground- 
water here counterbalances the effect of the dry season. 

A great part of the land thus conquered by the 
shallow seas, is however being reclaimed by man and 
enclosed by levees before it has time to develop its own 
vegetation. Rice-fields (or ' paddy '-fields) are planted on 
the undried silt, and rivers are bordered by areca and 
other palms, bambu-thickets and groves of banana- 
trees. The luxuriance of these 'paddy-lands' is un- 
bounded ; areca and coco-nut palms, manjack fruit, 
tamarind, orange and lemon, bread-fruit, and cinnamon 
trees yield profuse crops. Besides rice, the land, divided 
as a chess-board, gives pineapple, tobacco, indigo, cotton, 
and all the variety of tropical produce. The waste-land 
remains in the state of undrained, impassable reed- 
swamps, where there is an extraordinary abundance of 
game. 

The mountains of the interior hardly know a period 
entirely devoid of rainfall, and are therefore clad with 

c2 




FIG. 8. The Sundarbans. 



INDO-CHINA 21 

evergreen rain-forests. They offer, in their fastnesses, 
a veritable jumble of sharp ridges, precipitous slopes, and 
deep gullies, hidden beneath dense and tall forests, whose 
distribution is regulated by altitude. Thus the secluded 
valleys support on their lower slopes regular equatorial 
selvas, in the clearings of which equatorial agriculture is 
practised. The greater portion of the mountains, how- 
ever, is under rain-forests of the sub-tropical type, which 
may be characterized by tea and camellia, though on the 
upper slopes, oaks and pines are to be found in abun- 
dance, and mark temperate, even northern, conditions. 
In the Shan states, the plateaus of 3,000 to 5,000 feet 
in elevation, crossed by still higher ridges, display rich 
grassy expanses. Buffalo, rhinoceros, boar, tiger, deer, 
jungle-fowl, peacock, egrets, and snipe are still found in 
abundance in this broken and wild region. Thus, on the 
sea side, the excessive ground moisture, and in the high- 
lands, the atmospheric humidity, restrict the true mon- 
soon type of vegetation to the plains of Siam and Burma. 
It is even possible that the practice of grass-burning, 
common to all savana lands, has favoured the extension 
of the jungle. 

It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this 
south-east corner of Asia in the economic development of 
the world. Here, indeed, is said to be the original home 
of rice, banana, and sugar-cane, three of the most uni- 
versally essential articles of diet : our common lemon and 
orange are found wild : similarly, the melon and cucumber 
are among the indigenous plants of this region. Spices 
such as pepper, ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom, gums 
as betel, &c., rubber-plants as many species of ficus, 
gutta-percha plants, tea-trees, camphor-wood trees, and 
the valuable teak-tree, are all natives here; but the 
enumeration of all the economic products would be too 
long. 



22 



ASIA 



It is hardly surprising, therefore, that civilizations of 
a high order have advanced, in the past, in the inhabit- 
able parts of the country Cambodia, Siam, and Burma. 
The paddy-lands of the deltas, despite their insalubrity, 
are scarcely less densely peopled than the rich lands of 
central and northern China. In the highlands, except 
for the limited agriculture practised at the bottom of the 




Fia. 9. A Chinese Rice-field. 

valleys, the hunter is still master of the slopes and of 
their forests. 

Japan. The southern portion of Japan belongs to 
the same region as central China, whilst the northern 
part, or Nippon, belongs to the region of eastern Korea, 
and Hokkaido shares in a large measure the characteristics 
of Amuria. 

On the whole, the main island consists of a core of 



JAPAN 23 

highlands or Alps, having a coastal plain or hill land of 
varying breadth. 

Eastern Margin of the Great Central Plateau. The 
plateaus of Mongolia and Tibet are limited on the east 
by the Great Khingan and the mountainous margin of 
eastern Tibet. The winds, which are sucked inland 
from the Pacific by the excessive heating of the interior 
in summer, deposit much of their moisture on the eastern 
slope ; but before reaching it, they water abundantly the 
hilly lands of China. The whole of this marginal region 
is benefited by the wet monsoons, and is fertile. That 
the strength and beneficial effect of the monsoons gradu- 
ally decrease from south to north is partly shown by the 
fact that the Tibetan margin, which is abundantly 
watered, is ploughed by mighty rivers, whereas the 
Khingan escarpments, receiving only a meagre rainfall, 
are not deeply eroded. In winter the air is forced out- 
wards from the cold interior, and north-westerly winds, 
which are very cold and dry, sweep over the marginal 
lands. The broad belt of lower lands, which extends 
from 10 N. to 50 N., passes gradually from equatorial to 
nearly polar conditions. Equatorial conditions persist 
along the deltas and marshes of the coast as far as the 
Tropic of Cancer. Sub-tropical nature advances as far 
as the mouth of the Yang-tse, while the warm temperate 
climate reaches to southern Korea. 

Manchuria is sharply limited on all sides but one by 
mountains : the Khingan scarps on the west and north, 
the Sikhota Alin and Korean Highlands on the east and 
south. The vast rolling plain thus defined, lying at 
500 feet above sea-level, is too low to condense a due 
proportion of the moisture of the Pacific winds on their 
way from Korea to the Khingans. It is too far north 
to profit much by the monsoons, but in winter is swept 



24 ASIA 

by icy blasts from the north. It has therefore an 
extreme climate, with dry and intense cold in winter 
and sweltering heat in summer. Spring and summer 
rains are sometimes abundant and render the plain im- 




FIG. 10. The Manchurian Steppe and its Camps. 

passable. Indeed, in many respects, Manchuria deserves 
the name of Eastern Gobi, which is often applied to 
it; but it also offers some analogies in respect of its 
situation, climate and vegetation, with the low plain of 



MANCHURIA 25 

the lower Columbia on the Canadian border. Like 
the lower Columbian district, it possesses a naturally 
fertile soil ; and water, though absent from the surface, 
may be found generally at a depth of a few feet. Partly 
on account of its scanty rainfall, which does not exceed 
20 inches yearly, it has remained a treeless steppe. It 
possesses a few centres of aridity, which may even be 
represented by sand-deserts, and around these vegeta- 
tion is disposed in widening concentric belts of increasing 
fertility. The typical Manchurian steppe resembles the 
buffalo-grass plains, offering a low and fairly continuous 
level of dry grasses, interspersed, however, with various 
herbs, undershrubs, and bulbs, which flame into beautiful 
colours in spring. It is doubtful, whether climate and 
soil alone could account altogether for the absence of 
trees and shrubs in this region, but apart from destruc- 
tion by the nomads, no other reason is forthcoming. 
There are, indeed, travellers who believe that once the 
Mongols cease burning the steppe and begin to plough, 
trees will flourish everywhere, and already in the north- 
west corner a sort of park steppe with small round trees 
[nay be seen. 

Despite its extreme climate, Manchuria has attracted 
large numbers of Chinese agricultural settlers, who are 
3ndeavouring to turn the country into a rich wheat and 
cereal land and export the crops into Russia in large 
quantities. Hemp, opium poppy, and tobacco are also 
grown successfully, and large portions of the plain form 
rich agricultural districts. 

East of the Sungari the land rises, gently at first, 
in parallel folds, towards the Sikhota Alin highlands. 
There is no doubt that these hills were once clad with 
timber similar to that of the Usuri basin, but, as usual, 
deforestation has followed in the wake of the Chinese 



26 ASIA 

settlers, and the mixed forests of conifers and hard- wood 
trees are now enormously reduced, and restricted to 
some of the valleys : destructive floods also have arisen, 
and the hills have been stripped of their soil. Gradually, 
towards the east, with more abundant rains and a some- 
what less extreme climate, forest-clad slopes of a European 
type, and fertile valleys like that of the Usuri, appear, 
and form a transition to the Amur-Usuri region. The 
natural wealth, both mineral and agricultural, render 
this district an important asset in the development of 
eastern Asia. 

The Gobi-Manchuria barrier, the Great Khingan escarp- 
ment, being slightly higher, succeeds in wringing more 
moisture out of the south-easterly winds. The Khingan 
slopes are naturally well wooded, conifers being still the 
outstanding feature in forests of a European type. Much 
of the timber, however, has given way to cultivation and 
to pastures. As might be expected, the eastern slopes of 
the chain are richer than those facing the Gobi. 

Northern China. Manchuria is separated from China 
proper, west of the Gulf of Liaotung, by a broken high- 
land of moderate height, compressed between the Khin- 
gans and the sea. 

In China, agriculture, continued for long centuries, has 
altered the natural appearance of the land to such an 
extent that the primitive aspect of the vegetation can 
only be reconstructed with extreme difficulty. Despite 
the severity of the winters, a fertile soil, an abundant 
rainfall, and an absence of protracted droughts make 
northern, China support an abundant plant life, which 
naturally would be a dense forest growth. It is possible 
to see from what is actually left that this forest once 
existed and was of a northern, summer-green, broad- 
leaved type mixed with conifers, and so analogous to our 



NORTHERN CHINA 27 

European type. This was to be expected from a region 
with a severe and dry winter. When it is considered, 
however, that northern China lies in the latitudes of 
southern Spain and the Mediterranean, and is not a high 
plateau, the importance of the severe winter as a con- 
trolling influence upon the kind of vegetation is at once 
realized. 

Lured at one time of year, and by a combination of 
very favourable influences, into a growth of abnormal 
luxuriance, vegetation is at another time compelled to 
adjust itself to the eliminating conditions of a very try- 
ing season : a strong rhythm, even more marked here 
than in the coastal plains of eastern North America. It 
is, therefore, natural that plant life in northern China, 
unable through the winter limitations to assume a sub- 
tropical aspect, should exhibit the northern cool, temperate 
type in its highest activity. The vegetation of northern 
China represents the supreme expression of the cool, 
temperate, summer-green, broad-leaf, arborescent type, 
and is to be compared with that of the southern Appala- 
chians and the Atlantic coast-plains of North America. 

That the controlling feature of the climate upon vege- 
tation is the severe cold weather is still further shown 
by a comparison with the parts of Japan in the same 
latitudes, which have a milder winter by reason of their 
outlying situation, and are free from the cold and dry 
northern winds from the desert. In southern Japan 
we find the sub-tropical evergreen vegetation fully 
developed ; and, though of the broad-leaved, summer- 
green kind, the plant life of northern China has distinct 
relationship with more southern floras. The principal 
trees are no longer oaks and beeches and others familiar 
to us, but species of paulownia, catalpa, ailanthus, gle- 
ditschia, sophora, and the paper-tree or broussonetia 



XS ASIA 

a good many of which, by reason of their hardiness, have 
been acclimatized in Europe and are becoming familiar 
features of our parks and gardens. Further inland, 
however, one sees that the flora of Amuria, similar to 
that of Europe in many respects, has been carried along 
the range of the Khingans south to the Tsin-ling-shan : 
there oaks, hazels, birches, and conifers are to be found. 

In the east of northern China is an undulating lowland, 
the Yellow Basin, covered with enormously thick layers 
of a fine, porous, and extremely rich soil of a yellow 
colour, the incomparable ' yellow earth ' or loess which is 
deeply furrowed by rivers and roads. No soil more 
suitable for the growth of cereal crops is found any- 
where, and it vies with the ' black earth ' of Russia in 
fertility. Further down the valley, arms of the river 
flow above the general level of the land across the 
alluvial plains, and are partially and with difficulty kept 
within bounds by means of levees, hence periodical 
floods cover the region, often with the most disastrous 
results. 

Both the yellow belt and the delta are utilized for 
agricultural purposes to the fullest extent, and conse- 
quently support a dense population. Barley, millet, 
wheat, maize, cotton, tobacco, and hemp are abundantly 
cultivated, and yield admirable crops. As might be ex- 
pected, the loess belt, naturally rising above water-level 
and consequently cultivated more easily, was also settled 
and utilized before the flood portion, which offers greater 
difficulties. 

The hill-land of Shan-tung has been entirely de- 
forested and opened to agriculture. The hill-land west 
of the Gulf of Liaotung is a beautiful park, with rich 
meadows and patches of coniferous woods. 

In a sense, the Chinese nation was cradled in the 



NORTHERN CHINA 29 

Yellow Valley. There it is that the Chinaman developed 
his wonderful skill as an agriculturist, unsurpassed by 
any, stnd got those qualities of thrift, endurance, forti- 
tude, and perseverance which are his characteristics. 

Central China. In comparison with northern China, 
a more equable and milder climate, with a more abundant 
rainfall, ranging from 40 to 60 inches yearly, and regu- 
larly distributed over spring, summer and autumn, 
together with an immunity from the cold and dry blasts 
from central Asia, are the principal features of the large 
portion of China which stretches from the Tsinling- 
shan and the hills north of the Lower Yangtse to the 
mountainous region of Tongking and Yun-nan. 

The Tsinling range establishes an effective and sharp 
barrier between the Mongolian type of climate and 
mild and rainy central China. The steep northern 
slopes of the Tsinling, owing largely to deforestation, 
are mostly covered with a scattered bush, in which one 
discovers the Mongolian representatives of oaks, birches, 
and conifers, and even paulown r la and catalpa. Woods 
are mostly restricted to the upper valleys, and the 
slopes facing south are much more abundantly watered 
and considerably milder. They display already the chief 
characteristics of a moist sub-tropical climate with dwarf 
palms, large ferns, bambus, and an approach to temperate 
rain-forests. Towards the east, however, the distinction 
between the two regions of northern and central China 
is not so sharply drawn along the low divide between 
the Hwang-ho and the Yangtse basins. 

In respect of its climate, central China lies under very 
much the same conditions as the southernmost Atlantic 
States of North America, though here the monsoon is 
the great factor of plant-life. Everything points to its 
having been originally a region of extensive rain-forests 



30 ASIA 

of a sub-tropical, mostly evergreen character, abundantly 
mixed with conifers and summer-green trees ; but it is 
difficult, at the present stage of intensive agriculture, 
dating back so many centuries, to reconstruct exactly 
the original distribution of the different kinds of 
forests and pastures. The growing period extends over 
the larger part of the year, and is hardly interrupted 
by a short and temperate period of rest. 

Bananas and similar plants, as well as the tall tropical 
palms, are absent, but hardy species of palms, bambus, 
and ferns, even small lianas and epiphytes, and such 
trees as camphor- wood, camellias, especially tea-trees and 
liquidambars, are well represented. This is best seen in 
the mountains in the west, which display in their forests 
a magnificent profusion. Conifers of a southern type, 
such as gingko and cypresses (and even pines), mark the 
temperate nature of the climate, of which one is further 
reminded by the presence of winter-bare trees, such as 
chestnuts and maples. In short, it is legitimate to picture 
the primitive vegetation of central China as resembling 
that of the Alto Parand and Paraguay regions of South 
America. Within such an immense area, however, strong 
variations are certain to arise between the north and south, 
the far interior and the coast districts, bet ween the Alps of 
Hupe, the low valley of the Yangtse, and the hill-land 
of Hunan and Kiangsi. 

The fact that central China is the meeting-ground of 
the northern and sub- tropical floras produces a bewilder- 
ing wealth of plant-life, hardly surpassed in any other 
region of the world. Separate mention should be made 
of the western part, which includes Yunnan, Kwei- 
chou, and western Sechwan. Proceeding westward, the 
land becomes extremely broken. Increasingly loftier 
mountains attract an almost excessive rainfall, and the 



CENTRAL CHINA 31 

profusion of nature simply knows no bounds, whilst the 
rapid and vast changes of elevation create an immense 
variety. From the lowlands and the hill-lands, with 
their mixture of pines and palms, of camphor and other 
lauraceous trees, camellias and tea, and the hanging 
vines of the wistaria, one passes upwards into the diffi- 
cult and as yet little explored mountain region. In its 
forests, vegetation simply runs riot. Amid the remark- 
able and unsurpassed diversity of precious timber species, 
the gorgeous wealth of rhododendrons and azaleas, mag- 
nolias and bambus, fuchsias, roses and chrysanthemums, 
and the countless beautifully blossomed plants generally 
known to our gardeners as japonica, are found here in 
their native haunts. A belt of temperate, summer-green 
forests, including well-known trees, such as oaks and 
alders and hazels, is followed further up by dense 
forests of stately conifers. The alpine zone, with a large 
variety of primroses and gentians, of ranunculus and 
anemones, far surpassing the beauty of our own alpine 
meadows, extends to the line of eternal snows. 

As regards agriculture, the range of produce is no less 
striking: rice and cotton, mulberries and tea, poppies 
and beans, wheat, maize, pulses, onions, indigo, sugar, 
hemp, and tobacco, furnish profuse crops under the 
skilled and patient labour of the Chinese. In brief, it is 
hard to find any portion of the earth, including Europe, 
where the diversity and abundance of fruits and other 
produce are greater than in central China. For thousands 
of years the natives have been an essentially agricultural 
population and have carried their methods of cultivation 
to a high degree of perfection. Especially worthy of 
notice are the valley of the Yangtse, those of Hunan 
and Kwang-si, and the terraced region of Sechwan. 

Agriculture has always remained the primary and 



32 ASIA 

almost exclusive occupation of the Chinese, other indus- 
tries being subsidiary to it and ranking far behind it 
in importance. No nation has made more of, and so 
thoroughly appropriated, the soil : nowhere has rural 
life and organization been stronger : in a way, the chief 
of the state is but a glorified peasant. In no large 
natural region can the influence of agriculture, and 
through it, of the geographic environment, on the mode 
of life, institutions, organization, morals, religion, arts, 
and poetry, be traced so clearly as in China. 

Malay Archipelago. By their situation within the 
equatorial belt, the islands of south-eastern Asia: 
Sumatra, Java, Borneo, the Celebes, and the Philippines, 
to which may be added the Malay Peninsula : enjoy an 
equable equatorial climate, with an abundant rainfall 
distributed regularly throughout the year. We may, 
therefore, expect to find here all the profusion of tropical 
nature. The equatorial selva is indeed the rule here. 
Only minor climatic variations, along with the nature of 
the relief and soil, determine departures from this highest 
and heaviest type of vegetation. All these islands 
possess a skeleton of mountains, either in long barrier- 
ranges, as in Sumatra and Java, or in centres from 
which chains radiate, as in Borneo. In Sumatra and 
Java, those ranges are high and continuous enough 
to drain the bulk of the southern monsoon, and thus 
render the northern slopes comparatively dry. West 
Java is also moister than the eastern portion of the 
island, and consequently the alternation of dry and wet 
periods tells more on the vegetation. This contrast can 
be traced throughout the different belts of altitude 
from the sea-shore to the tops of the mountain screens. 
Thus, in the west and south, the lower slopes are clad 
with a heavy growth of luxuriant selva: in the east 



MALAY ARCHIPELAGO 



33 



and north the forest type is much poorer and lighter, 
tending towards the leaf-shedding type of the teak or 
' djati ', with which it is abundantly intermixed. The 




FIG. 11. Undergrowth of Evergreen Equatorial Forest 
in Solomon Ishxnds. 



succeeding belt on the moister side consists of ever- 

o 

green, temperate rain-forests, not unlike those of 
south Chili and, corresponding to the cloud-belt, 



34 ASIA 

characteristically overgrown with hanging mosses. -On 
the drier side, the middle zone is constituted by a park 
landscape of grasslands interspersed with woods. Their 
dominant tree is a casuarina, locally called ' tjemoro ', 
whose leafless and shadeless twigs have the appearance of 
our humble horsetail. The ground vegetation consists of 
small bushes with a leathery foliage, suggesting the poor 
ground brush of a thin pine forest. Approaching the 
tops of the mountains, the trees and even the elfin scrub 
disappear to make way for the meagre grass-lands. 

The well-watered plains, which are fully developed 
only on the northern side, are the seat of an active agri- 
culture, in which tobacco and coffee predominate. 

Intermont plateaus intervene frequently between the 
southern scarps and the opposite slopes : they are 
covered with poor pastures. 

Borneo, as a whole, is surrounded by wide coastal 
plains, most of which, on the Asiatic side, are covered 
with fields and fallow-lands. The central highlands 
are densely wooded and, as far as has been ascertained, 
include a lower zone of equatorial selva and a middle 
belt of temperate rain-forest carried far into the upper 
valleys. Above 7,000 feet the ridges are covered with 
coniferous woodlands passing to elfin woods, and, at 
higher levels, to elfin scrub and alpine brush. 

The narrow plateaus which form the backbone of the 
Celebes display typical savanas. 

It is a striking fact that the alpine vegetation of dwarf 
shrubs and cushion-plants, with their tiny, leathery, or 
wool-clad leaves, strong roots, and gorgeous display 
of flowers, which are usually associated with ice and 
snow, should be found here characteristically represented 
at comparatively low levels, under the Equator, and 
entirely free from snow. It is equally remarkable that 



MALAY ARCHIPELAGO 35 

the upper limit of forest-growth is very low as compared 
with the corresponding levels amid the continental 
ranges of the equatorial belt. The same phenomena are 
still more forcibly exhibited in the lower South Sea 
Islands. They all tend to show that the strength and 
dryness of the winds are the real influences which limit 
tree-growth and shape the alpine vegetation on the 
mountains, as they do in the polar regions. 

To the enormous and varied resources of their islands, 
the Malays have greatly added by sea trade in the 
past. The wealth of these populations at once agricul- 
tural and sea-faring was very considerable, and their 
influence spread all over the eastern seas. To this day the 
Malayan islands are among the most densely populated. 
Mysterious ruins of truly magnificent cities testify to 
the high measure of civilization reached by those people 
long before the advent of Europeans. 

India may be said to be entirely governed by the 
monsoon, whose effects are largely controlled by the 
relief of the surface : thus the area beyond its influence 
in the north-west is extremely arid, and the plain 
of the Ganges which lies open to the south-east monsoon 
is fairly well-watered on the whole; but the winds 
gradually spend their moisture on the way westward. 
Approached from the south-west, the semi -arid table- 
land of the Deccan is robbed of a large portion of its 
water by the screen of the western Ghats, which thus 
separates it from the luxuriant Malabar coast. The 
southern part of the plateau, however, merely from its 
geographical position, enjoys a longer wet season than 
the northern half and is correspondingly more fertile. 
In the Himalayas, the eastern half is abundantly watered, 
while the north-western part only receives a scanty 
balance of the moisture. 

D 2 



36 ASIA 

The strong rhythm of the two seasons is thus felt 
throughout the whole of India ; but on the outskirts of 
the area, along the Malabar coast, in the north-eastern 
Himalayas, Assam, and western Burma, the period of 
drought is so short as to be practically without in- 
fluence. Consequently these regions are the seat of 
evergreen wet forests. Throughout the rest of India, 
the ground is sharply contested between tree-growth and 
scrub ; but where tree-growth is possible, it bears the 
stamp of the seasonal contrast and foliage is shed during 
the dry period. The winter colds are unimportant as 
a factor in vegetation, except among the mountains. 
Central India is not, therefore, a region of continuous 
and dense forests, but offers a varied landscape whose 
type oscillates between tropical deciduous woodlands and 
the poor acacia scrub. 

The Ganges valley has been cultivated so long and so 
intensively that its original state can only be guessed at ; 
at present it is well-nigh treeless. Its fertility comes 
from its alluvial soil and from the abundant water-supply 
afforded by its rivers, the Ganges and its tributaries, which 
are utilized for irrigation. Rice, wheat, opium, indigo, 
and, in some parts, cotton, are the staple crops which 
now support a large population ; but it is not unlikely 
that it was formerly a savana interspersed with various 
kinds of rain-green woodlands. 

The combined delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra 
presents an aspect similar to that of the Burmese and 
Indo-Chinese deltas. The lower swampy alluvium, covered 
by an impenetrable mixture of evergreen jungle and 
mangrove, have hitherto proved too strong for human 
powers, and have challenged human enterprise much as 
the corresponding swamps of the Mekong. 

The vast table-land of the Deccan, difficult of access 



38 ASIA 

and seamed by deep gorges, is less than 3,000 feet high. 
It may be divided, broadly, into a north-west drier part 
and a south-eastern portion where the rainless period only 
extends over two or three months ; but the driest area 
stretches in a belt at the foot of the western Ghats. 
Much of the original character is still preserved in the 
mixed woodlands of teak and other deciduous trees, which 
however, do not form a continuous cover, but are inter- 
mingled with large expanses of semi-arid scrub. Though 
the Deccan is said to be destitute of true ' caatinga ' forma- 
tion similar to what exists in South America, Africa, 
Australia, and Siam, it is evident that some of its deci- 
duous jungles and woodlands, depending upon analogous 
climatic conditions and offering the same vegetative 
characters, may be classed under that type. The gorges, 
which the rivers have cut for themselves below the level 
of the plateau, are densely wooded. A large portion of 
the dense and tall, drought-bare scrub is only new 
growth consequent upon the destruction of forests, which 
is natural in a country with a comparatively dense popu- 
lation. Among the economic resources of the woodlands 
are teak, sandal- wood and cedrela, the bastard cedar, 
whilst cotton is extensively grown. 

The escarpment known as the eastern Ghats leads one 
from the central plateau to the low and narrow coastal plain 
of Coromandel. This is a dry and hot, sandy tract, mostly 
covered with thickets of thorny evergreen shrubs, equiva- 
lent to the * restinga ' formation of the Brazilian shores. 
The evergreen jungle, however, gives way, at the deltas 
of the main rivers, to fertile tracts which are suggestive 
of oases. 

The west coast feels, to a much less degree, the 
seasonal monsoon rhythm and the influence of the dry 
season. The drought lasts less than two months and the 



INDIA 39 

atmospheric humidity continues to remain high. Of 
peninsular India, this stretch of coast-land, at most fifty 
miles broad and rising in abrupt scarps at the back, is 
the only one which admits of high tropical rain-forests. 
These forests, albeit they do not attain the luxuriance of 
the selvas of south Sumatra, display a great exuberance 
and all the essential features of the typical rain-forest. 
The hot and wet region of Malabar is continued into 
south-western Ceylon, where the character and profusion 
of the equatorial belt are further emphasized, and the 
coco- nut palm forests are famous. 

In the north-east of India, the mountain forests of the 
Arakan-Assam system, as well as those of the south- 
eastern Himalayas, exhibit a wet evergreen, but distinctly 
sub-tropical, type, with a great wealth of forms. The 
admixture of leaf -shedding vegetation is fairly strong, 
and trees of a more familiar aspect, oaks, pines, and 
magnolias, are abundantly represented. Here tea is as 
profusely grown as in southern China. The north-eastern 
mountainous region of India, which is also the region of 
heaviest rainfall in the world, is most appropriately com- 
pared with the middle belt of the Montana at the head 
waters of the Amazon. 

A cross-section cut through the south-eastern portion 
of the Himalayas would show a lower tropical belt, 
about twenty miles broad, rising from the plains to 
1,000 feet, of loose forests (chiefly of s&l-tree) and rich, 
swampy jungles and grasslands, with enormous bambus 
and tall palms. 

The sub-tropical belt, which reaches an altitude of 
6,500 feet, presents the wet, evergreen aspect, but includes 
trees of a familiar type, such as pines and live oaks, 
celtis, olive-trees, sumacs, and others. 

A temperate zone of non-coniferous, largely deciduous 



INDIA 41 

forest-growth, succeeded by a zone of conifers and 
rhododendrons, stretches up to 11,500 feet. The alpine 
zone of pastures and shrubberies, of screes and herb 
coverings, ascends to 16,000 feet. 

On the north-west, the Himalayan vegetation, 
especially in the lower reaches, loses more and more 
its sub-tropical character and profusion. In the 
Indus district the climate is decidedly dry, and the 
vegetation assumes increasingly, at least at the lower 
and middle elevations, a somewhat mediterranean aspect 
with stout, evergreen, round-headed, hard-leaved trees, 
walnuts, oaks, pines, firs, and deodars. Many of the 
slopes are either completely denuded or thinly dotted 
with a Ioos6 evergreen scrub equivalent to the Mediter- 
ranean ' garigue '. , The woods are loose, often scattered, 
with hardly any undergrowth or ground vegetation. 
This district is extremely suitable for the cultivation of 
maize and wheat. 

The Indus Desert is really part of the vast system of 
tropical deserts of the Old World and the easternmost 
corner of the arid belt of the Sahara- Arabia-Persia series. 
The bulk of the monsoon from the Arabian seas is 
deflected towards the east by the Vindhyas, leaving but 
an unimportant part for the plain of the Indus. Thus 
the rainfall which is always irregular hardly risec above 
ten inches yearly. The centre of this area is formed by 
the hot desert of Thar, a low and monotonous plain, one 
of the dreariest places on earth. It is approached through 
concentric belts of increasing barrenness : a main zone 
may be distinguished, extending on the west to the foot 
of the Baluchistan highlands, and on the north to the 
foot of the Himalayas. This zone may be compared 
with the Somali ' nyika ', and is covered with a scattered 
and herbaceous vegetation, with a thin dotting of thorny 



42 ASIA 

shrubs, most of which venture to assume their scanty 
foliage only during the short rainy period. Among 
them may be recognized familiar denizens of the African 
semi-deserts, e.g. the Arabian acacia and the tamarix, 
and along the margins of the dry river-beds, fig-trees and 
Euphrates poplars. Oases, with palms, are to be found 
in fair abundance; but the life of this area is due, 
and restricted, to the Indus and its tributaries, fed by 
melting snows of the Himalayas, and dry most of the 
year. By means of auxiliary canals and irrigation 
ditches, the productive surface has been extended in the 
vicinity of the rivers, and wheat can be grown with suc- 
cess. In short, a parallel may be drawn between this 
Indus belt and Mesopotamia ; but here the importance of 
the Himalayan snows is such that the network of rivers 
and canals allows of a fairly dense human settlement. 

From prehistoric times, the immense wealth and in- 
finite resources of India have attracted invaders, con- 
querors, immigrants, adventurers, and travellers, by land 
and sea 3 from all points of the compass. In the Deccan, 
the eastern slopes and plateaus came to be densely 
peopled, whereas the slopes of the western Ghats, with 
their dark forests, remained comparatively uninhabited. 
Geographical changes have also occurred which have 
moved the centres of population. There was a time 
when the Indus was a more powerful stream than it 
now is, and fertilized a much vaster area of its valley. 
Even the Thar desert is strewn with ruins of forests, 
canals, and cities, testifying to its former importance. 

Iran is a natural region formed by a vast plateau, 
defended on all sides by a continuous rim of mountains : 
on the north by the chain of the Elburz Khorassan 
merging into the Hindu Kush ; on the east by the 
broken Baluchistan highlands; on the south and west 



IRAN 43 

by the great barrier of Zagros, rising precipitously from 
the narrow coastal shelf of the Persian Gulf. 

Its, central situation in the midst of arid lands, and 
its girdle of lofty mountains mark it, from the first, as 
a very dry territory, whilst its elevation, which, in the 
south-west, is considerable, and its extra-tropical position, 
make it a land of extremes of heat and cold. Except in 
the north-west, the yearly rainfall remains under ten 
inches and is very unreliable. The worst feature is 
the icy northern blast which sweeps unchecked across ths 
eastern plains. Here again, therefore, the life of the 
country depends largely on the snows of the marginal 
mountains, and of the two chains which cross the plateau. 
These feed meagre streams, which dry up and lose them- 
selves at no great distance from the foot-hills. 

Under such circumstances, forest-growth is out of 
question ; even large tracts of continuous grassland are 
scarce. Loose colonies of plants form the essential feature, 
and these are necessarily confined to isolated localities 
of limited extent, conditioned solely by the nature of 
'the relief and the soil. The dry winds keep the vegeta- 
tion low : trees require the shelter of the mountains, 
but low shrubs, scattered and deciduous, able to tap 
the deep-seated ground-water, are best adapted to these 
conditions, and with them an ephemeral flora, which 
bursts forth with the occasional showery spells and then 
dies. Perhaps the chief characteristic of the Persian 
vegetation is the extraordinary wealth of thorns and 
prickles: about five hundred thorny plants have been 
counted here, including small trees, shrubs, under-shrubs, 
and perennials. 

An important distinction must be drawn between the 
broad valley of Shiraz-Isfahan, which rises like a vast 
hummock between the southern chain of Iran and the 



44 ASIA 

interior chain of Kerman and Yezd, attaining an eleva- 
tion of over 4,500 feet; and the plains of Khorassan, 
Kuhistan, Eegistan, and northern Baluchistan which lie 
to the north and east. The valley stretches in a south- 
east to north-west direction and penetrates into the moun- 
tains of Armenia. It is very cold at night, and sometimes 
covered with snow in winter. In the centre, broad sur- 
faces are thinly dotted with tufts of dry, short grass, 
and with stunted, leafless thorn-bushes. In places the 
growth of dwarf herbs becomes almost continuous and 
forms a meagre steppe. During the rainy spells; how- 
ever, the landscape is strangely enlivened by a carpet of 
low herbs with gorgeous flowers which burst forth from 
the barren soil as though by magic. This ephemeral 
flora of annuals is quite European in its composition and 
appearance. 

The influence of the mountain streams does not extend 
far in the plains. These streams are absorbed by the 
sands and evaporated at no great distance from the foot- 
hills ; but before losing themselves, they create a fertile 
belt of terraces, alluvial fans, flats and marshes where 
life is concentrated. In consequence, towns are always 
found in the vicinity of the mountains. In past ages 
the natives developed great skill in the search for water 
and the appropriation of the ground moisture, and the 
necessity of walling in the gardens against the winds 
was early recognized. Orchards have been planted with 
most of our European fruit and other deciduous trees : 
such as the walnut, apricot, peach and almond, plane, 
Euphrates poplar, &c. The gardens are renowned for 
the incomparable beauty of their roses, but the tops 
of the trees above the sheltering walls are soon killed 
by the dry winds. Such vegetation is also represented 
in the valleys of, and in the belt around, the mountains 



IRAN 45 

of Kerman and Khorassan, whose limestone slopes are 
generally as porous and barren as those of Zagros. 

Very different is the appearance of the desolate plains 
which lie at a lower level east of Teheran and north-east 
of the Kerman chain. This portion of Persia is much 
poorer in water and more extreme in climate than the 
plateau of Shiraz-Isfahan ; in fact, it corresponds to 
the arid alf a plateaus of north-west Africa. A per- 
sistent and strong dry wind from the north keeps down 
all tree-growth and is the specific feature of the climate. 
Vast expanses of sand-wastes and salt-tracts are well- 
nigh devoid of vegetation or peopled by straggling 
colonies of salt-bushes. Other areas support a loose 
brush of tamarixes. Broad stretches of rubble, especially 
in the eastern part, grow only solitary bushes, thorny, 
leafless, and stunted, and tufts of stiff, wiry grass. 

Life is confined to the immediate margins of the rivers 
which diverge from the Hindu Kush, or, again, to the 
valleys of that belt of low hills which separates Kuhi- 
stan from Afghanistan. In the middle of the wide 
expanse of barren gravel lies the oasis known as Seistan, 
a very rich country due to the convergence of the Hindu 
Kush rivers towards the lowest point of the relief at the 
foot of the central chain of hills. Here are exhibited 
the characteristics of the northern vegetations, and agri- 
culture is of a northern type ; cereals and fruit-trees 
are profusely grown under shelter. Seistan was known 
in the past as one of the granaries of central Asia, but 
with increasing dryness, its limits have contracted con- 
siderably. Swampy tracts between the affluent rivers 
are covered with jungles of tamarixes, similar to those 
of the Tarim desert. 

Farther south, the sub-tropical character is asserted 
clearly in the oases, which like those of Africa and 



IRAN 47 

Arabia are graced by clumps of date-palms. The moun- 
tainous southern portion of Baluchistan and Mekran 
continues the narrow coastal shelf which stretches at the 
foot of the wall of Iran. Outside the oases, the vegeta- 
tion is limited to poor and scattered scrubs of thorny, 
leafless bushes, among which the acacias are now charac- 
teristic. 

While the high plateau of Shiraz occasionally affords 
a meagre fodder to passing camels, and is pleasantly 
diversified by oases, the desolate plains of Khorassan 
are unfit for anything. The valleys of Afghanistan 
radiating from the Hindu Kush are peopled by villages 
dispersed along the bottoms only : the slopes are singu- 
larly devoid of vegetation. 

In the chain of Zagros, which continues the Taurus 
and forms the south-western escarpment of Persia, the 
climate still retains a mediterranean character but to- 
wards the east becomes increasingly dry. The limestone 
rock, by its sheer slopes and the porous nature of its 
rubble, adds greatly to the aridity of the country. In 
many respects the Zagros chain strongly recalls the 
barren region of the Illyrian Karst. Most of the steep 
slopes are entirely denuded ; and it is only on the ter- 
races and in the depths of the secluded longitudinal 
troughs, sheltered from winds and favoured by local 
accumulations of ground-water, that vegetation appears. 
The live oak and other evergreen, hard-leaved trees and 
shrubs give it a decidedly mediterranean stamp. Loose 
formations of low shrubs fringe the valleys on the gentle 
lower slopes; at times there is enough water to allow 
the trees to close in and even to crowd as light woods. 
Frequently, indeed, these secluded troughs and terraces 
reveal a veritable luxuriance in their fruitful orchards 
of olive, apricot, apple, peach, almond, pomegranate, 



48 ASIA 

walnut, and other trees. Cereals, especially wheat and 
maize, are grown with the best results. Cypresses and 
plane-trees add to the unexpected beauty of the moun- 
tain oases. In addition, meadows are often found in 
these remote hollows ; they are sufficient to support 
the herds of the nomads in their yearly migrations from 
the winter grazing grounds of the lowland to the summer 
mountain pastures : but, as a rule, the limestone rock, 
with its fissures and its stony wastes, is too dry for 
continuous swards of grass. This mediterranean karst 
vegetation, concealed on the terraces and in the valleys 
of the Zagros margin, stops at the Straits of Ormuz. 

Briefly, then, the roughly triangular plateau of Iran 
defined by the Elburz and Khorassan chains in the north, 
the Zagros-Mekran-Baluchistan ranges in the south, and 
the Baluchistan mountains in the east, falls into quite 
typical regions ; the lofty valley of Isfahan-Shiraz, the 
lower and drier salt depressions of Khorassan-Afghanistan 
to the north-east, the dry and rocky semi-tropical hilly 
tract of Baluchistan in the south-east, the karst-like 
range of the Zagros on the south-west, and the desert 
coastal shelf of the Persian Gulf. Local names connote 
some of the distinct types of regional vegetation : thus 
' dschaengael ' whence the name jungle has arisen 
clearly designates loose scrub-land and also scattered 
wood : ' saerhadd ' ^ connotes the elevated summer-pas- 
tures. 

Agriculture in Persia is necessarily restricted to very 
few and limited localities, the largest cultivated area 
being found in the trough of Seistan. The main wealth 
lies in fruit-trees, many of which are undoubtedly indi- 
genous. Several plants of economic value are found 
wild, such as the pomegranate, the fig-tree, and the 
white mulberry; the mountain pastures support sheep, 



IRAN 49 

which give valuable wool: hence two important indus- 
tries are those of silk and wool rugs. Here, again, the 
alternate availability of lowland and highland pastures 
drives the shepherd regularly from one to the other, and 
causes nomadism. 

Of the northern chain of Iran and the declivities 
which face Turan, mention has been made already. 
Towards the Caspian, the rain-bearing winds become 
more generous, and that part of the Elburz which lies 
along the southern margin of the Caspian is fairly abun- 
dantly watered: hence the sharp line drawn between 
the northern and southern slopes of the chain; while 
the Persian side is arid, the Caspian side is well-wooded. 
The tree-growth is decidedly of northern temperate, 
winter-bare type, with a rich variety of species, and 
here occurs the easternmost limit of our common beech. 
The plane-tree, the walnut, the ash, the hornbeam, several 
kinds of oaks, maples, and poplars, and, in addition, the 
stately zelkova, compose the forests, which, to our eyes, 
would thus have quite a familiar aspect. A character- 
istic shrub is the box, which forms almost exclusive 
scrub at higher levels in the centre of the range. The 
winter appearance of the Caspian forests, with bare trees, 
and snow lying on the ground, differs very little from 
that of the mountain-forests of central and eastern 
Europe ; the ground vegetation in summer reveals plants 
equally familiar to us : in short, the southern margin of 
the Caspian is in striking contrast with its drier sur- 
roundings. 

Iran is in the belt of lands which have been 
gradually drying up. Life has always been more con- 
centrated in the elevated plain of Shiraz and Isfahan, 
tod in the north-west corner towards Armenia. The 
Iranians were early devoted to agriculture, which they 



50 ASIA 

indeed raised to a sort of religion: they were among 
the first users, if they have not been, as they claim, the 
actual inventors, of the plough and of the windmill : their 
skill in discovering and utilizing water was famous. 
The empires which successively arose and declined there 
exercised their influence far eastward on China and 
India, westward on Europe, and made the most valuable 
contributions to civilization. 

Mesopotamia. Under this term is here included the 
region which extends along the foot of the Zagros from 
the Straits of Ormuz to the highlands of the Euphrates : 
bounded on the west by the escarpment of the Syrian 
desert,' it includes the middle and lower valleys of 
the Euphrates and Tigris. The climate may be best 
compared to that of the Mediterranean, but with accen- 
tuated heat and drought; the winter is comparatively 
milder, but not so rainy as in the Mediterranean; the 
summers are dry and scorching. 

The great feature of this region, however, is the back- 
ground of limestone highlands, which prove to be the 
source of its fertility. The relatively abundant water, 
which falls on the northern and north-eastern moun- 
tains, sinks rapidly to a lower level, and feeds the two 
main rivers, Euphrates and Tigris. It further washes 
down from the mountains a rich calcareous silt, which 
is deposited in the plain, and renders its soil extremely 
fertile, while, at the same time, these alluvia are periodi- 
cally flooded by the water from the melting snow. Vast 
marshes are thus created on the level tracts, but the 
ground-water is never very deep. 

All these circumstances compensate for the dryness 
of the climate : the rainfall which remains under ten 
inches, is irregular and limited to the winter months. 
In these plains, vegetation naturally depends on the 



MESOPOTAMIA 51 

amount of water in and on the soil, more than on 
the atmospheric humidity : the topography and the soil 
entirely control the character of the natural vegetation. 

Where, for geological and topographical reasons, the 
level of the ground-water is deep, the vegetation, entirely 
dependent upon the climate, is extremely scanty, low, 
and stunted, even of a desert type, consisting of a very 
thin dotting of bare, thorny, gnarled bushes, intermixed 
with tufts of dry, stiff grass : indeed, the aspect is then to 
be compared either with that of the barren Atlas plateaus 
or with that of the rubble of Baluchistan. This dreary 
landscape is only brightened in winter and spring, when 
showers determine the germination of the millions of 
seeds lying dormant in the sand, thus suddenly called to 
extremely activje and short life. The Garmsir is indeed 
the land of ' ephemeral' plants, which impart to the land- 
scape an indescribable beauty. Large tracts, however, 
keep their fertility for a longer time, owing to the reten- 
tiveness of the soil and to the presence of water near 
the surface. In this case, vast meadows are created 
which also benefit by the snow-fed floods of spring, and 
pass into steppes on the higher ground as do those of 
upper Mesopotamia. 

Of the tracts depending entirely on ground-water, 
the date-palm is the characteristic tree: it marks the 
irrigated ground and the banks of rivers and canals. 
Its growth is encouraged by the natives on account of 
its valuable products; every part of it becomes useful. 
Under its shade are found admirably cultivated gardens 
and fields where fruit-trees, from coffee and vine to 
peach, almond, and fig, are grown; wheat and maize, 
millet, tobacco, rice, cotton, and hemp also yield profuse 
crops. 

The ranges of hills which rise isolated in upper Meso- 

E 2 



52 ASIA 

potamia exhibit a marked mediterranean character: 
live oaks and fig-trees are to be found everywhere, 
but man has reduced most of the original woods which 
clad their slopes to the condition of the evergreen 
scrub known in the Mediterranean as 'maquis' and 
' garigues '. 

Upper Mesopotamia deserves a special mention here. 
On account of its hilly nature, it lies in a zone 




FIG. 15. The Jubailah Creek Mesopotamia. 
Date-palms on the left. 

of more abundant rainfall, not exceeding 20 inches 
yearly, and mainly limited to winter. This hinterland 
is indeed entirely mediterranean in respect of its climate 
and vegetation. It is bounded on the north by the 
Armenian Taurus, and sinks, on the south, to the level 
of the lowland by an escarpment giving the impression 
of hills. 

This piedmont terrace, the centre of which is Diar- 
bekir, was originally the land of the live oak and the 



MESOPOTAMIA 53 

fig-tree, but is now laid under fields of maize, wheat, 
tobacco, and rice, fruit orchards, olive- and vineyards. 
It is continued on the south-east by the foot-hills and 
foot-terraces of the Zagros chain. 

The part of the Garmsir which forms the shelf of 
Zagros to the Persian Gulf is arid and scorching. The 
vicinity of the mountains, however, determines the 
formation of numerous water points, which are so many 
date-palm oases, each a nucleus for a village. 
- The past fertility of Mesopotamia, with its ' garden of 
Eden', was due to the utilization of the waters of the 
twin rivers Tigris and Euphrates by means of irrigation 
canals and ditches, and to careful drainage, which formed 
one of the most admirable engineering works the world 
has ever seen. On these were founded the powerful civi- 
lizations which succeeded each other in the course of 
centuries, with their countless cities and their all-impor- 
tant influence upon the history of mankind. It is now 
proposed to restore the irrigation systems and thus to 
open a new future to Mesopotamia. 

Asia Minor is a vast and irregular plateau, with an 
average height of over 3,000 feet, and encircled by moun- 
tains. In the west, it opens by broad valleys to the 
Mediterranean ; on the east, it is bounded by the com- 
plicated mountainous region of Armenia. The mountain- 
chains which cross, the plateau, like the other features of 
the relief and the bounding walls on the north and south, 
are directed mainly east and west. The mountain-rims 
on the north, west, and south deprive the centre of Ana- 
tolia of most of the climatic advantages which would 
accrue from its position in the midst of the great inland 
seas. Bereft of rains and of the regulating influence 
of large sheets of water, the high plateau is arid and 
extreme in its climate. Its irregular rainfall is limited 



54 ASIA 

to less than ten inches, the bulk of which falls in winter, 
partly in the form of snow. On account of this and of 
the altitude, the atmospheric moisture is extremely low. 
The main portion of the plateau is treeless and barren. 
Even for large compact masses of shrub-lands and for 
permanent and continuous expanses of grass these con- 
ditions are too severe ; and centres of aridity are formed 
by salt marshes and sand wastes. 

Anatolia, therefore, is not fit for any other vegetation 
than a ragged covering of scattered brush and shrubby 
perennials. The inland ranges are barren : an abundance 
of thorny plants (shrubs, under-shrubs, and creepers), 
a development of a woolly covering on the leaves of 
the lower plants, and a general dusty-grey aspect of 
the whole plant- world, are characteristic features of the 
landscape for the greater part of the year ; but, during 
the irregular spells of rainfall, the growth of the rain 
flora is quite as vigorous as in Persia. . 

Up the slopes of the inland mountains, some of which 
attain a great elevation, the poor scrub and ragged carpet 
of low, woolly perennials of the plateau pass gradually 
to similar wastes, in which the alpine character of the 
scattered plants, and the disappearance even of the 
isolated shrubs, constitutes the only difference. 

While this description is true of the central plains, 
the general aspect gradually changes towards the west, 
where the country becomes more broken. The very 
scattered brush closes into a loose garigue or a continuous 
maquis, according to the condition of the soil. In short, the 
landscape gradually assumes the mediterranean appear- 
ance of evergreen shrub- and wood-lands. Now the live 
oak, the olive, the orange-tree and laurel, the fig-tree 
and, westward, on the upper hills, even pines, occur in 
increasing abundance. The rainfall has increased to 



ASIA MINOR 55 

such an extent that the cultivation of wheat is rendered 
possible in the valleys. 

The southern margin of Anatolia displays the same 
mediterranean character. Along the Taurus, evergreen 
woodlands, often reduced to the condition of maquis and 
garigues, are the dominant feature : but cypress, cedar, 
and black pine, together with the Cilician fir and 
junipers, the remains of a once more luxuriant forest, are 
abundantly intermixed in the broad and hard-leaved 
woods ; they even constitute independent patches in the 
fastnesses of the mountains. The upper slopes with their 
alpine herbage afford summer pastures for cattle. 

The aspect of the northern slopes, facing the Black 
Sea, which may be called Pontus or Pontis, is different. 
In every respect the climate and the vegetation of these 
slopes are identical with those of the South-Caspian 
barrier of Persia. Sufficiently watered, yet experiencing 
distinctly the rhythm of hot and cold seasons, the forests 
are bare in winter, and their appearance and composition 
is similar to the central European woodlands. How- 
ever, the plane-tree, the horse-chestnut, pterocarya, wild 
walnut, and many others, exemplify the much greater 
variety of the trees, and the conditions, milder than in 
Europe, which prevail there. To find a vegetation exactly 
equivalent to that of western Europe, one has to climb 
up to a middle zone characterized by the oak. Further 
up again, a subalpine shrub belt is formed by rhodo- 
dendrons and bilberries, and leads to alpine pastures. 

The highlands which rise to the east of Anatolia, and 
penetrate far into Persia under the name of Armenia, 
are not so well provided with water as the Pontic slopes. 
Their vegetation presents a transition stage between the 
mediterranean and the northern types. Originally well- 
wooded, but formed often of limestone, they have been 



66 ASIA 

deforested largely by incessant streams of immigration. 
Their lower slopes are pretty bare, only supporting the 
scattered maquis, but the upper slopes often shelter coni- 
ferous forests. 

The country is rich in the valleys, where orchards and 
gardens are found in abundance. In addition, the upper 
valleys afford excellent summer pastures with all the 
glory of our alpine swards, where the shepherds, and 
part even of the agricultural population, migrate in 
the hot weather. Although it is probable that climatic 
changes have taken place in this region, the bulk of Asia 
Minor, by reason of its aridity, could never become the 
centre of an indigenous civilization, and of great empires, 
like the valleys of Mesopotamia and Egypt. By contrast, 
the fertile but hilly coast fringes permitted the develop- 
ment of small separate nationalities, subsisting partly on 
mediterranean agriculture, partly on sea-trade. Each of 
these in turn rose to some degree of prosperity, and exer- 
cised a real influence in history: each of them also 
naturally expanded towards the hinterland, across the 
mountains, and brought under their sway the adjacent 
portions of the arid territories with their itinerant tribes. 
Apart from the frequent passage of migrating nations, 
the history of hilly Armenia is, in the main, a tale of 
endless struggles between the settled agriculturists of 
the lower terraces and plains, and the wild shepherds of 
the upper valleys. 

Turau extends from the Kirghiz steppe to the moun- 
tains of Khorassan, and from the Caspian to the Pamirs 
and the Tian Shan. It is formed by the bottom of a 
dried-up sea, a vestige of which remains as the Aral. 
A low plateau, the Ust-Urt, separates it from the 
Caspian. 

By reason of its feeble altitude as well as of its central 



TURAN 57 

position, Turan receives rain from none of the surround- 
ing areas. The winds from the north, which deposit their 
scanty moisture on the southern and eastern mountain 
ranges, sweep past the depression without any benefit to 
it. Its climate is therefore truly desert and extreme, 
open to excessive variations from the hottest summer to 
the coldest winter, from scorching winds to icy gales. 
In this respect, it differs from the sub-tropical deserts. 
Turan owes what fertility it may possess to its two 
large rivers the Amu and the Syr. 

Vast territories are left entirely plantless, indeed life- 
less. They are impassable stretches of moving, heaving 
sands, and where these are relatively settled, vegetation 
has succeeded in gaining a foothold. It consists of a brush, 
now scattered, now in thickets of sand- shrubs and small 
bushy trees, the whole aspect of which recalls tree-heaths 
or brooms, the trees possessing tiny leaves or none. The 
best representative of this flora is the saxaul, fifteen 
to twenty feet in height and less than a foot thick, whose 
grey trunk, curved and twisted, resolving itself into 
numerous scaly, thin, short-segmented twigs, makes it 
resemble a besom. It stores water in its bark, where- 
in also the green matter which represents the absent 
leaves is hidden : other trees have the appearance of the 
tamarix. This brush effectually binds the sand, and 
advantage is taken of the fact to resist the encroach- 
ments of the shifting dunes by means of extensive 
plantations. 

No less formidable than these ' red and black deserts ' 
are the vast level wastes of saline clayey soils, sparsely 
dotted with dwarf bunches of mostly leafless plants. 
The vegetation consists of salt-bushes, dusty-grey worm- 
wood, spreading besoms of bare, broom-like under-shrubs, 
or crawling and thorny stragglers. Such . also is the 



58 ASIA 

dreary landscape of the tracts bordering on the Caspian 
and covering most of the low Ust-Urt plateau between 
that sea and the Aral, where, however, conditions are made 
worse by the unfavourable nature of the soil, which, 
besides being salt and destitute of moisture, often con- 
tains poisonous substances. 

Through the deserts of Turan, the Amu, and the Syr 
Darias stretch two thin lines of oases. The othr rivers 
lose themselves in the sands, after breaking up into 
fertile swamps. 

Along the southern and eastern margins of Turan 
extends a belt of terraces, foot-hills, and alluvial tracts, 
whose naturally fertile soil derives moisture not only 
from the vicinity of the highlands, but also from their 
snow-fed rivers: in fact, this belt owes its existence 
wholly to the mountain streams. It is lined with little 
oases along the foot of the Khorassan ranges and ex- 
pands in the valleys of the Heri-Rud, Murghab, Amu, 
Zerafshan, Syr, and Chu. A good soil and a sufficiency 
of water, notwithstanding the extreme but not hostile 
climate, put those rich valleys in striking contrast with 
the forbidding solitudes of Turan proper. The land of 
Fergana bears comparison with the plains of Lombardy, 
and the upper valley of the Amu is still broader and 
richer. In the past, these border-lands were prosperous 
and eaeji drop of water was carefully appropriated ; each 
of the v alleys mentioned was a centre of civilization. 
Powerful ^empires in Fergana, Sogdiana, Bactria, and 
Wergian, With splendid cities such as Kria, furthest 
Alexandria, Samarkand, Bactra (modern Balkh), Merv, 
and Herat havk left imposing ruins ; but the increasing 
dryness of the dlimate, coupled with invasions of the 
nomad shepherds \from the desert, gradually extended 
the limits of TuranX To this day, however, portions of 



TURAN 59 

the large valleys display luxuriant orchards, where most 
of the mediterranean produce and fruits are grown: 
mulberry, apricot, plum, almond, apple, as well as grapes, 
melons, maize, rice, wheat, and cotton ; and tall, columnar 
poplars are everywhere in evidence. In respect of its 
agriculture, therefore, this belt is related to the mediter- 
ranean regions, of whose climate it presents a drier and 
more extreme variety. This comparison would be still 
more justifiable at the time of the greater extension of 
the inland seas. 

The winter and spring rains provide temporary grazing 
grounds for cattle, sheep, camels, and ponies, which 
migrate in summer to the snow-free and luscious moun- 
tain pastures. Here again, as all over central Asia, 
the annual rhythm of migration from lowlands to high- 
lands and back is strongly marked. 

Turkestan Highlands : Tian Shan, Alai, Badakshan. 
Compared with the surrounding lowlands, the Tian Shan 
highlands appear as a delightful oasis, both on account 
of their varied scenery and of their verdant vegetation. 
They drain the north and westerly winds of what mois- 
ture they may possess, which usually amounts, however, to 
less than 20 inches yearly. The atmosphere is generally 
clearer than in the Siberian highlands. Owing to the 
northern and western origin of the moisture-bringing 
winds, the southern and eastern districts are drier and 
poorer than those of the north and west, and over the 
entire area, northern and western slopes are the richer 
and moister. 

With the rains, snows, and mists, tree-growth is 
possible here at altitudes exceeding 5,000 feet and up to 
9,000 feet ; but it is exclusively coniferous. Poplars are 
seen only in the depths of the river- valleys, and walnuts 
and other fruit-trees grow exclusively in gardens. The 



60 ASIA 

forests, which consist of spruce and a kind of Sabine 
juniper, are seldom dense, but towards the east and south 
they become decidedly diffuse and often fail completely. 
They are generally not continuous, but are interrupted 
by pastures, and largely restricted to the valleys. There 
is a fundamental difference between the short and dry 
swards of the steppes and the long, close, and lush 
meadows that extend below, through, and above the 
timber-belt, and often replace it entirely : the latter 
partake of the luxuriant character of our meadows. 
They are beset with a number of tall herbs and shrubs, 
such as the rose and barberry, wild geraniums and 
poppies, peonies and gentians, blue bells, wild onions, &c. ; 
there is quite a wealth of garden-plants, which grow 
wild, such as 'asparagus, candytuft, chrysanthemum, 
columbine, heliotrope, pansies, rhubarb, peony, phlox, 
tulips, and crocus. 

The alpine meadows, which extend beyond the belt of 
junipers, display an exuberant beauty equal to the best 
flower-tracts of our Alps; but there are no swamps or 
bogs, no heather and bilberry moors, no rhododendrons. 
Below this elevated garden, however, the valleys dis- 
play only drier steppes, which gradually pass downwards 
to dusty, scattered brushes, and, sometimes, to entirely 
plantless gorges. On the Mongolian side, the steppes 
ascend much higher than on the west, and are often 
replaced immediately by alpine pastures without the 
intervention of a tree-belt. 

In some respects, then, the Tian Shan recalls the 
elevated natural parks at the head-waters of the 
Colorado, in the Rocky Mountains, and provides summer 
pastures for the cattle and sheep, and quarters for 
the shepherds, of the plains. The portion which pene- 
trates far into the Mongolian desert is naturally very 



TURKESTAN HIGHLANDS 61 

much poorer, and grows quite arid towards its eastern 
extremity. 

Kirghiz Steppe. From north to south, east of the 
Ural- Caspian line, there is a gradual impoverishment 
of plant life from the wet Siberian ta'iga to the sandy 
deserts of Turan. The wooded swamps of Siberia give 
place to a fiat or rolling country, where the marshes 
are reduced to hundreds of small lakelets in the troughs 
and hollows, and the climate is neither so rainy and cold 
as that of the tai'ga, nor so dry and hot as that of Turan. 
This is the region of steppes. 

The line between the forest and the grass-land is not 
hard and fast. Over a belt 200 to 300 miles wfde, the 
transition is made by a park landscape, in which birches 
are scattered over the prairie in groves, groups, and 
sometimes in woods. The innumerable marshes are 
marked by fringes of giant cow-parsnips, day-lilies, 
willows, and poplars. Meadows and herb-mats are 
interspersed in the steppe. Trees disappear gradually 
towards the south ; the steppe assumes a typical, dry 
aspect with its low covering of wiry grasses, in the 
interstices of which the soil may be seen. Henceforth, 
it is a heaving ocean of grass, the appearance of which 
changes wholly from season to season: verdant and 
flowery in spring, brown and parched in late summer, 
dusty -grey with woolly wormwood in autumn and 
winter. It sometimes conceals rich black earth and 
loess, which forms a heavy and retentive soil. 

The climate, though not so hostile as that of Turan, 
has an irregular rainfall oscillating between 10 and 
20 inches distributed over spring and summer, with 
droughts recurring every few years. Generally about 
two-thirds of the year are very dry, and excessive alike 
in cold and heat. (The combination of this type of 



62 ASIA 

climate and fine soils, all over the world, results in a 
similar absence of trees and bushes, and the develop- 
ment of the dry grass-land known as steppe or prairie, 
of which an abundance of bulbs and tubers is a feature.) 
Saline wastes grow more numerous southwards. They 
soon spread over vast areas towards the Aral region, 
and are accompanied by the usual thin covering of salt 
bushes and tamarisks. In the middle of the steppe, 
the hilly district of Akmolinsk produces a recurrence 
of fertility which has gained for it the name of 'little 
Switzerland '. 

The limited grazing capacity of any given area 
induces the natives, who depend for their living almost 
exclusively on their cattle, ponies, and sheep, to migrate 
frequently as their pasture-grounds become exhausted, 
and thus to lead a wandering existence : in summer, 
when the steppe is dried up, those who are not far from 
the mountains, journey thither. 

The remarkable fertility of the black earth and loess, 
however, now fully recognized, has led to the opening of 
the steppe for agricultural purposes, wherever water is 
available and irrigation possible. A large portion of 
this region may become, in course of time, a wheat 
district as rich as that of Nebraska, California, and the 
Eed River, the Plate, or Australia, or, nearer at hand, 
the Russian steppe. 

On the south-east, the Kirghiz steppe is continued into 
that of northern Sungaria and northern Mongolia. This 
long grass belt, stretching between the desert on one 
hand and the mountains and forests on the other, was 
one of the natural highways whereby the nomadic 
populations of wild shepherds from further Asia slowly 
reached Europe, driving their herds before them. 

Siberian Highlands. A broad and complex system of 



SIBERIAN HIGHLANDS 63 

highlands^ of moderate elevation, which includes the 
Altai and Sayan chains and the Trans-Baikal highlands 
with the Vitim and Aldan plateaus, separates Mongolia 
and Amuria from eastern Siberia. 

As may be expected from its continental situation, it 
is a region of severe climatic extremes and reduced 
atmospheric moisture. The rainfall derived from the 
northern and eastern quarters occurs chiefly in summer, 
but there is a heavy snowfall in winter. The moderate 
height of the mountains, sufficient to condense a large 
proportion of the vapour of the winds, allows some of 
it to penetrate further south than would such a lofty 
barrier as the Kuenlun. 

As each successive ridge athwart the southward track 
of the winds levies its toll of moisture, the lower limits 
of rains and clouds are gradually raised from ridge to 
ridge, with the result that the southernmost valleys 
remain dry. Correspondingly, the levels of fairly 
luxuriant vegetation recede farther and farther up, 
going towards Mongolia ; and for the same reason, the 
southern slopes are drier than those facing north. Thus, 
whilst the Siberian slopes are abundantly wooded and 
linked uninterruptedly with the Siberian tai'ga, the 
Mongolian valleys display their forest belts only on their 
upper slopes. 

Conifers are the only trees that can constitute forests 
among the Siberian highlands under such extreme con- 
ditions : birches and aspen, which accompany the rivers, 
are of little importance as forest-trees, and mostly to be 
found at lower levels, though on the sunny southern 
slopes of Trans-Baikalia the birch may reach an eleva- 
tion of 4,600 feet. Between the Siberian tai'ga and the 
highland forests there is this difference, that the latter 
do not exhibit the stunted, even dwarf aspect, which 



64 ASIA 

characterizes tree-growth on the East-Siberian plateaus ; 
on the other hand, especially on the southern slopes, they 
are seldom dense and close: they have that scattered 
appearance which characterizes the forests on the Rocky 
Mountains and Sierra Nevada. The undergrowth, which 
is mostly grassy, is far from being thick and impassable 
as in Sakhalin. 

Scots pines, with a mingling of birches and aspen, 
come next to the steppe vegetation on the western and 
southern slopes. Farther up, larches predominate, but 
often mix with, or give way to, Siberian firs and spruces. 
Many humbler plants, with which we are familiar, occur 
here : there is an abundance of aconites, peonies, willow- 
herbs, geraniums, cow-parsnips, bright-flowered ground- 
sels, &c., in the meadows and pastures that frequently 
interrupt the clear forests. Some of the vivid flowers 
of the steppes are found far up the wooded slopes. 
Stone-pines form the upper tree-limit at altitudes 
varying from 4,000 feet on the northern slopes to 
5,000 feet on the southern slopes. They penetrate in 
groves and clusters among the upper hill-pastures, where 
such shrubs as rhododendrons and such flowering herbs 
as globe-flowers, columbines, anemones, violets and gen- 
tians, poppies and saxifrages, remind one of the Alpine 
meadows of Europe. The pastures of the Siberian high- 
lands, in contrast with the dry and short swards of the 
steppes lower down, seem like hay meadows. 

Thus there seem to exist, in these highlands, two 
aspects or landscapes gradually merging into one 
another : the northern or Siberian, more densely wooded, 
and connected with the Siberian taiga. This is typically 
exhibited among the Baikal highlands: the other, the 
Mongolian or southern aspect, may be seen characteristi- 
cally displayed south of Baikal, in the districts of the 



SIBERIAN HIGHLANDS 65 

Orkhon and Tola. It consists of an admixture of pastures 
and scattered woods. 

Approaching Amuria, some of the broad-leaved, 
summer-green trees of the latter region, such as the 
walnut, now begin to appear, while denizens of the 
northern tundras and mountains penetrate far south 
along the naked ridges of the Jablonoi. The plateaus of 
Vitim and Aldan, which slant from the edge of the 
Jablonoi towards Baikal, are of the nature of park- 
like, subalpine pastures and moors, comparable with the 
plateaus of British Columbia. 

The importance of the Siberian highlands, especially 
of the southern slopes, is great in the life of the Mon- 
golian tribes, for the upper slopes provide excellent 
summer pastures at a time when the adjacent steppes 
are scorched and dry. Populations leave the burnt 
steppes every summer and betake themselves and their 
herds to the fresh and luxuriant grazing-grounds of the 
mountains, and this is the easier on account of the 
scattered nature of the forest belt. On the northern 
side, the colder climate and the darker forests remain 
serious obstacles for the herdsmen. Hence the tide of 
nomadism, which rises every year from the scorched 
plains on the south up the southern mountains, is 
arrested by the forests more than by the mountains 
themselves. There is no apparent reason why some kind 
of agriculture should not be practised locally along the 
rivers. Wherever water is available, the soil offers 
a generous reward to human efforts, but this is true only 
of the valleys, for the upper slopes are too cold for pro- 
fitable cultivation. 

Mongolia. That vast inland basin, which stretches 
from the Khingans to the Tian Shan and Pamirs, and 
from the Siberian highlands to the Altyn Tagh, is 

1169.1 F 



66 ASIA 

considered here as one geographical unit. Mongolia forms 
the largest unbroken portion of it. Towards the west, 
the great ranges of the Tian Shan and the Altai divide 
it into the separate basins of the Tarim, Sungaria, and 
Kobdo. 

Completely enclosed by mountains, the central plateau 
is practically shut off from outside influences. Rainless 
for the most part, it undergoes without mitigation the 
alternations of intense cooling and heating, and is swept, 
according to the season, by icy or scorching winds, neither 
of which bring rain. What water may be found within 
the basin is mostly due to the snows of the surrounding 
rim of mountains. 

The Han-hai is not an absolute desert over its entire 
area, but rather develops around certain centres of 
greatest aridity, the most important of which are to be 
found in the Gobi or Shamo, in the Takhla Makan, and 
in Sungaria. 

Such centres take the form of stony wastes or of seas 
of moving sand-dunes alternating with salt tracts of 
various extent: they are wellnigh plantless. In the 
desert of Kami, says an explorer : ' Siliceous soil, sand, 
stones, with scattered blocks of loess, here and there the 
bones of a dead camel or horse, were all that met the 
eye. Not a tree, not a shrub, neither bird nor beast, not 
even a lizard, gave life to this dismal waste. The ground 
was burning hot ; even night brought no relief. Terrible 
storms whirled clouds of sand along. . . .' 

Around those forbidding areas, in belts that meet each 
other to cover the largest portion of the plateaus, extend 
semi-desert wastes of rubble, gravel, and coarse-grained 
sands, where scattered tufts of dried-up grass, one foot 
high, intermingle with Compositae. Predominant among 
them is the sage-like artemisia or wormwood, which also 



MONGOLIA 67 

characterizes the semi-deserts of Nevada, Colorado, and 
Arizona in western North America, as well as the circum- 
desert belts of northern Africa. Depressions and dry 
river-beds, where some ground water remains during the 
greater part of the year, are marked by a taller and 
thicker growth of grass ; a species that attains large 
proportions in favourable situations is the kamish. 
There are very few of those strange succulent, bulbous, 
or tuberous water-storing plant-forms of the American 
and African deserts : tree and bush vegetation is 
represented by solitary small trees or occasional 
thickets at the foot of a hill or in the dry bed of 
a temporary river, where rhubarb may also be found 
wild. These trees 'are held in great veneration by the 
natives. The usual flora of small plants, which may 
lie for years in the seed-stage and burst into an 
ephemeral life only after the casual rains, is not lacking 
in Mongolia ; in season, one-flowered tulips occasionally 
adorn the ground with fragrant and beautiful carpets. 

The true steppe constitutes another belt outside those 
just described. It extends in a narrow atrip along the foot 
of the mountains carpeting their foot-hills and penetra- 
ting deep into their valleys. All but dry and apparently 
dead in summer, it displays a beautiful mat of blooms in 
spring. In this region, the oases are usually disposed in a 
string along the marginal mountain-chains ; they develop 
where the snow-fed rivers dry up or disappear in the 
sand shortly after leaving the hills. To the north of 
the desert, their vegetation is distinctly of the northern 
type. They are recognized in the distance by screens 
of gaunt poplars and willows, elms and ashes, all summer- 
green trees with which we are familiar; and such 
shrubs as dog-rose, bramble, raspberry, and honeysuckle 
would remind us of home vegetation, while the tall 

F 2 



68 ASIA 

reeds which mark the water-points are identical with 
those of our own country. On the southern side of the 
Han-hai, at the foot of the Nan-shan, plant life has some 
distinct mediterranean features, both in the natural and 
the cultivated vegetation. 

Apart from these concentric belts the various regions 
of the Han-hai possess an individuality of their own. 
The Tarim basin is related in some degree to the low- 
lying deserts of Turan as regards its flora. The nucleus 
of it is the deadly sea of shifting sands of the Takhla 
Makan, while its margin is formed by a ring of swamps, 
which mark the places where rivers lose themselves. 
Extensive brushes, ranging from dense tangles to scat- 
tered heaths, constitute a cheerless vegetation; and bushy 
poplars resembling straggling birch-bushes, small trees 
such as tarnarixes and saxauls, gnarled and stunted, 
either leafless or with heath-like scales, alternate with 
reeds, rushes, and coarse grass. This jungle also fringes 
the uncertain course of the rivers, and is tenanted by 
deer and tiger, but serves for winter grazing grounds. 

The alluvial tracts of the rivers make a chain of oases 
round the desert outside the ring of marshes : groves of 
tall poplars and willows occur at intervals and shelter 
the villages, around which cultivation of cereals and 
fruit-trees of a mediterranean type is carried on. This 
forms the inner route of the caravans, continued along 
the Nan-shan and the Tsin-ling-shan, to the Yellow 
River. 

Beyond a belt of porous and arid gravel downs, one 
reaches a broken line of loess terraces, which are more 
or less planted with maize and fruit trees, and support 
agricultural villages, joined by a second caravan route. 
Ultimately among the mountains, the heads of the 
valleys, thanks to fair summer rains, provide abundant 



MONGOLIA 69 

pastures, when the lowland grazing grounds are dried 
up. Hence they are tenanted in summer, and the 
temporary villages at the foot of the grazing slopes 
are connected by an outer route. Wild sheep and ibexes, 
hares, wolves, and bears are found here. 

A similar disposition is seen in the southern part of 
Sungaria, beyond the barrier of the Tian Shan. The desert 
nucleus is not so extensive as in the Takhla-Makan. 
Quasi-desert wormwood-brush-wastes cover a large 
portion of northern Sungaria, and gradually merge into 
the steppe which clothes the foothills and lower valleys 
of the Altai range : thence the steppe skirts the southern 
margin of the Siberian highlands, penetrating deep into 
the valleys and up to the belt of luxuriant mountain 
pastures or, eventually, rising to meet the forests. 

The secluded fcobdo basin is an outlier of the Mongo- 
lian steppe far among the highlands. Its landscape is 
much more prosperous than that of Sungaria, containing 
only a few arid centres of limited extent, while its grassy 
downs are interspersed with some luxuriant meadows. 
Tree-growth remains confined to the river-margins and 
to the oases, or again is relegated far up the mountain 
slopes. This is a rich cattle country, where ponies, 
camels, and sheep find abundant maintenance during 
the winter months. The character of the oases is now 
decidedly northern. 

The foot-hills and marginal belt of northern Mongolia 
display a landscape similar to that of Kobdo. On the 
north-eastern and eastern margins, along the Khingans, 
the summer rains spread to some distance from the 
mountains, correspondingly widening the belt of steppes. 
Between the latter and the desert area lying to the 
west, the larger portion of the Gobi falls into the zone of 
scattered grass and wormwood-brush, which in late 



70 ASIA 

summer and winter is as bad as the true plantless 
desert. This is also the case with the Ordos plateau, 
which lies inside the loop of the Hwang-ho. 

The alternate availability of summer pastures in the 
mountains and winter pastures in the lowlands has 
determined the nomadism of the Mongolians, along 
the whole margin of the plateau. This nomadism is 
mitigated by the fact of a double chain of oases, where 
permanent cultivation is possible, an inner line of swamps, 
and the line of loess terraces, which are often transformed 
into fertile orchards and corn-fields. 

On the two sides of the desert the character of the 
natural and the cultivated vegetation is different : on the 
northern side it is frankly northern, on the south it is 
mediterranean. Thus the lower valleys, south of the 
Tarim, display rich orchards of apricots, mulberries, 
melons, grapes, pumpkins, walnuts ; and fields of maize, 
similar to those of Fergana and the upper Amu. This 
is the more readily explained by the fact that the present 
desert is the bed of a former inland sea whose last and 
feeble vestiges are found in such erratic and vanishing 
sheets of water as the Lob-nor, the Ebi-nor, the Bag- 
rach-kul, and others. Long after the disappearance of 
the sea, a more generous climate prevailed over the 
broad plains strewn with large lakes. Water was more 
abundant than it is now, and large rivers wound far into 
the plain,while agriculture supported comparatively dense 
populations : important cities also were engaged in active 
trades. The gradual drying up continuing, forced the 
cities nearer and nearer to the mountains, burying the 
old ones in the sand. The lofty chains increasingly 
grudged their scanty waters to the plains, and the popu- 
lations had to depart with their herds, to follow the 
broad belts of steppes between the snows and the deserts, 



MONGOLIA 



71 



pouring westward into Europe and eastward into 
China. 

Tibet and Pamirs-Tsaidam. Enclosed and traversed 
by the loftiest and most formidable mountains of the 
world, Tibet consists of a succession of parallel valleys 
choked with the glacial wastes of their dividing ranges 
up to an elevation of 15,000 feet above sea-level, thus 




Fio. 16. ' Tho Top of the Last Pass '. 

forming a series of wide, flat plateaus, separated by long 
ridges. The mountain-chains converge towards the 
west and lead through a row of stupendous gullies, still 
partly occupied by glaciers, to another region of broad 
and level floors or 'Pamirs' of the same origin as 
those of Tibet, to which, therefore, the name may be 
conveniently extended. Towards the east the Chinese 
rivers, fed by the monsoon rainfall, have cut for 



72 ASIA 

themselves gigantic chasms and eaten their way into the 
heart of the plateau, partly clearing away the glacial 
wastes. 

libet is not entirely rainless, but receives a large pro- 
portion of its scanty water in the form of snow. The 
north-western half of its area appears to be drier than 
the southern and eastern portions. It is open, by reason 
of its altitude, to an excessive evaporation and radiation. 
The climate is extremely cold, but relieved in summer by 
some warm days, though terrific snow-gales sweep across 
its surface in winter. The soil, which consists mostly of 
glacial and alluvial rubble, shingle and gravel, naturally 
adds by its excessive porosity to the climatic dryness ; 
only the fine silts and clays along the rivers and around 
the lakes possess a natural fertility. Tibet may be 
described, on the whole, as a cold desert. 

Over vastexpanses the rubble and gravel may be entirely 
plantless. The finer soils support a thin sprinkling of 
tufted grasses and a few other rosette herbs, but trees and 
shrubs are absent. The bands of alluvia along the rivers 
often permit of the development of short pastures, and 
even mats of dwarf grasses of an arctic-alpine type. 
Special or strange plant-forms are rare, and there does 
not appear to be the wealth of tuberous and bulbous 
forms which characterize the South- American punas: 
even the large cushion plants do not seem to be recorded 
as striking features. Reed and rush-swamps also occur 
near the rivers and lakes, but peat-bogs are not 
reported. Most plants are dwarf and crawling, or in 
spread rosettes, and forms above one foot in height are 
rare. Not all parts of Tibet, however, are equally barren: 
going eastward, the fertility increases and grazing grounds 
are better. At the head- waters of the various Chinese 
rivers, the alpine meadows are extensive and generous; 



TIBET AND PAMIRS-TSAIDAM 73 

those of the shores of the Kuku-nor are particularly 
beautiful, and wild and tame yaks, wild and tame sheep, 
wild asses, antelopes, and other animals, find here ample 
food. 

Towards the south, the more sheltered plains occasion- 
ally support orchards of fruit-trees, and cultivation be- 
comes possible around Lhasa. This is due to its situation 
and lower altitude, as well as to an increase in rainfall 
and to more moderate winds. The north-western portion 
is the driest, and is almost entirely destitute of plant-life : 
the intervening ranges are bare and largely covered with 
snow and ice. 

The Pamirs proper, though perhaps not so bleak as 
north-western Tibet, display a similar vegetation. In 
summer, the herds of the Kirgkiz nomads graze the 
pastures of the alluvial tracts, but beyond these meadows 
the porous glacial bottoms offer nothing but a rugged 
carpet of dry, coarse grass-tufts or crawling bushes. 

Forests of conifers penetrate very far up the deep and 
narrow valleys of Kashmir and Ladakh, which are 
drained by the Indus. Beyond the forest limits, which 
here oscillate about 12,000 feet, trees continue to within 
a short distance of the glaciers themselves. They are 
poplars, willows, and other low, small-leaved, summer- 
green trees, which generally herald the approach of 
villages and are, indeed, mostly planted, though clusters 
of them may yet be found among rich meadows at the 
bottom of alluvial sections of the valleys, where they 
form delightful park-landscapes. Other meagre shrubs, 
resembling brambles and brooms, now and then close into 
a loose scrub, while the crawling and spreading juniper 
may be strewn over the bare lower slopes. Long tracts of 
these valleys have their flanks entirely denuded; bare 
platforms, shelves of rubble and waste, or naked gorges 



TIBET AND PAMIRS-TSAIDAM 75 

and some have floors of loose and dry pastures of tuft- 
grass. Meagre crops of barley and vegetables are raised 
almost up to the foot of the glaciers on their alluvial 
fans ; terraces are resorted to for the purpose of irrigation. 
These valleys are well sheltered, and perhaps unusually 
mild, considering the altitude ; yet because they receive 
only a very scanty rainfall and depend exclusively on 
their ice-fed rivers, vegetation is limited to the floors, the 
more so still on account of the steepness of the slopes. 

Tsaidam, in the north-east corner of Tibet, is inter- 
mediate in elevation between it and the Gobi. It is 
a secluded and desolate waste of salt swamps and loose 
brushes of tuft-grass, intermixed with lifeless deserts, 
but, though treeless, it does not completely exclude 
scrub vegetation : a- few shrubs, such as tamarisks, 
charmiks (lycium), with their edible berries, nitrarias 
and buckthorns sometimes twenty feet high, ascend to 
altitudes of 9,000 and 10,000 feet. 

Being absorbed entirely in the bitter struggle against 
nature, the Tibetans, who have remained primarily 
shepherds, have received civilizing influences from the 
surrounding countries without contributing anything of 
importance to the progress of mankind. 



CHAPTER II 

NORTH AMERICA 

Two large bodies of land like North America and 
Eurasia, placed in similar situations and possessing 
broadly similar relations to air and sea currents, are 
bound to show a great similarity in the main features 
of the distribution of climate, and of life : an increase 



76 



NORTH AMERICA 



of the intensity and total amount of plant-life from 
north to south, from centre to margins, with a maximum 
in the south and east: a western fringe more equable 




FIG. 18. Physical Features of North America. 

and moderate in climate than the central and eastern 
portions at the warm and cool temperate latitudes. 
North America, however, is a smaller continent, and its 
relief is not drawn on the gigantic scale of that of Asia, 



NORTH AMERICA 



77 



hence the contrasts in the distribution and forms of life 
are less emphatic and sharp. 

The main features of the relief of North America are 



Under 10 Inches 
JO to EO 
EO 40 - 
40-80 
Over 80 




Fro 19. Mean Annual Rainfall of North America. 

directed from north to south; while in Asia they run 
broadly from east to west, and grass and desert belts 
also stretch in a meridianal direction in the western 
continent. 



78 



NORTH AMERICA 



Whereas in Europe the absence of high altitudes 
allows the moisture of the westerly winds to spread far 
into the continent, in western North America the inter- 
position of a multiple barrier of lofty mountains keeps 
that moisture for a narrow fringe and leaves the interior 
quite arid. On the east, the Appalachians correspond 
in some measure with the Chinese Alps, but being 




FIG, 20. Seasonal Distribution of Rainfall in North America. 

much lower they are not so effective a barrier in 
keeping the rains out of the' middle of the continent. 
The free communication that exists between the polar 
seas and the Atlantic, in contrast with the narrow gates 
of the Bering Sea, is also probably an important factor 
in reducing the temperature over the north-eastern 
portions of the New World, and carrying far south the 



NORTH AMERICA 



79 



limits of the cold deserts and of the northern coniferous 
belt. 

Tundra Region. The polar margin of the North 
American vegetation is characterized as in other con- 
tinents by the treeless tundra. From west to east of 
the continent the isotherms are driven gradually further 
south, and the northern belts of vegetation are correspond- 
ingly lowered in latitude on the Atlantic side. Thus 
the northern limit of trees which, on the Mackenzie, 




JANUARY 




JULY 



FIG. 21. Mean Temperature of 
North America in January reduced 
to sea-level. 



FIG. 22. Mean Temperature of 
North America in July reduced 
to sea-level. 



runs near the Arctic coast, not far from 70 N,, is driven 
south to about 55 N. in Labrador. This line marks 
also the southern limit of what is really treeless tundra. 
In Alaska the tundra occupies a narrow strip of coast 
along the Bering Sea: on the northern coast it covers 
the polar slopes of the northernmost branch of the Rocky 
Mountains: from the Mackenzie River eastward, its 
southern limit strikes inland across the lake region to 
reach Hudson Bay at Fort Churchill. It extends, as 



80 



NORTH AMERICA 



a coastal fringe, to the Arctic islands, and reaches a great 
development in western Greenland. 

The specific feature of the American tundra, as com- 
pared with those of Siberia and Greenland, is the 



CDTundr* 

^Coniferous 

Temperate 
^Mediterranean 

ixed Tempe rate 
Warm E3 Steppe 




Fio. 28. Vegetation of North America. 

wealth and extent of its lichen carpets ; the cold desert 
seems to be drier here than in Europe and Asia, 
Though the ling heath is entirely absent from America, 



TUNDRA REGION 81 

other species of the heather family are numerous, and 
in the tundra or barrens their dwarf bushes are pre- 
ponderating; among them occur evergreen rhododendron, 
kalmia, ledum, bearberries, and other bushes of a 
similar character, clad with lichens. The well-known 
bloom-mats carpeting the southern slopes of many of 
the hills and knolls, like islands or oases of beauty, are 
said to reach their best development in Alaska. The 
most brilliant representative of their flora, i. e. the 
dodecatheon primrose, has found favour in our gardens, 
together with a handsome willow-bush which grows 
along the rivers, the arctic poppy, saxifrages, gentians, 
&c. Further north, the tundras of the high 'Arctic 
islands become poorer and poorer in vegetation. 

The lichens of the * Great Barrens ' support a fairly 
abundant animal population, the furs and feathers of 
which are sought after by Eskimos, Indians, and back- 
woodsmen, who repair at intervals to the trading posts 
of the Hudson Bay Company, the only centres of barter 
of these bleak regions. 

The thick clouds of mosquitoes, which tenant the 
tundra and prove such an unmixed nuisance to man, 
fulfil an important rfile in the economy of the animal 
world, in providing an inexhaustible supply of food 
for the innumerable legions of migrant birds, which 
are attracted from parts as remote as the southernmost 
extremity of South America. 

The Great Canadian Forest. Hudsonian Forest. In 
Canada the transition from cold moors to temperate 
conditions is very gradual, for between the actual tundra 
and the dense forest extends a wide belt of mixed type 
called the ' scattered forest '. It is remarkable that the 
northern limit of the regular Canadian taiga should 
follow the latitude of the southern limit of that of west 



82 



NORTH AMERICA 



Siberia ; the reason perhaps being the proximity of the 
great ice sheet which covers the highlands of Greenland, 
or even ultimately the climatic conditions of the circum- 
polar cap. The sub-arctic forest deserves indeed to be 
termed scattered. Over vast expanses, tre&s are dotted 
singly or in clusters, seldom in close formation ; the 
rivers, however, are fringed on either side by regular 




, w 

FIG 24. Spruce forest on a river flat Canada. Pine-clad slopes 
and tree limit. 

marginal forests which follow them, as on the Mac- 
kenzie River, almost to their mouths. The species of 
conifers may vary from east to west, but the general 
conditions, aspect, and mode of life are very similar 
throughout. 

The soil of the north Canadian forest is all of glacial 
origin : sand, clay, or gravel. The irregular surface is 



THE GREAT CANADIAN FOREST 83 

dotted with innumerable lakes of all sizes, is often 
largely marshy, and as a rule the ground is poor and cold. 
Moors, swamps, and meadows are freely mixed with 
the forests. If heath and heather are unknown, a large 
number of plants allied to our whortleberries, cranberries, 
crowberries, and bearberries, and of the same vegetative 
type, replace them. The sweet gale or bog-myrtle, the 
aromatic winter-green and the huckleberry also occur. 

The Canadian forest spans the whole continent from 
the Pacific to the Atlantic, and is largely composed of 
conifers. The balsam iir, the white, black, and red 
spruces, the tamarack, and several species of pines 
are the most widespread. Leafy trees are dispersed 
among them, and in many instances form independent 
groups. Balsam poplar, aspen, paper-birch, &c., in the 
extreme north-west, constitute stunted, young-looking 
woods almost up to the tree-line. The scattered type 
of north Canadian forest extends over the central plateau 
of Alaska, between the branches of the Rocky Mountains, 
and almost reaches the Bering Sea. Here again the 
dense spruce forest is found only on the large alluvial 
' flats * along the Yukon and its main tributaries. 

It is difficult to over-estimate the importance of this 
northern advance-guard of the tree vegetation. It pro- 
vides a supply of timber which, if carefully treated, may 
last indefinitely, as it is always renewing itself. It is 
also teeming with animal life. The agricultural possi- 
bilities of the region are certainly limited, but for 
pastoral industries of a northern type it is scarcely 
touched at present: timber and game are the only 
products which have been extensively worked so far. 
Life has hitherto been, as in the tundra, mostly nomadic 
and primitive, and fur-hunters, trappers, and lumbermen 
have constituted the majority of the population. 



84 NORTH AMERICA 

Like the tundra, this forest appears to play an impor- 
tant part in the economy of the animal world, being the 
summer resort of many migrant species from the south, 
and the winter refuge of many others from the far north. 
Its destruction might therefore mean serious trouble for 
vast numbers of useful birds and mammals, and involve 
the disappearance of many helpful animal workers. 
Man is only beginning to realize the cost of recklessly 
interfering with the established economy of nature. He 
has often acted in ignorance, or disregard, of the inter- 
relations between the various sections of the plant and 
animal world, with serious losses in life, time, and energy 
for himself. 

Great Lake Region, or South Canadian Forest. 
In the eastern half of North America, the climates 
change much more rapidly from north to south than in 
the west. The belts of vegetation are narrower and 
follow one another in more rapid succession; thus the 
forests which extend east of Winnipeg across the Great 
Lakes and New England are of a richer type than those 
of the Hudsonian region. Although more extreme than 
that of western Europe, and resembling that of Amuria, 
the climate allows a variety of species of plants to take 
advantage of all the modifications of soil and other 
conditions ; hence, while this region is primarily one of 
conifers, it is distinguished by a large proportion of 
summer-green, broad-leaf forests. On sand, pine-forests 
predominate with the Weymouth pine, the pitch pine, 
and others ; hemlock-spruce forms dark and damp 
clumps, and on marshy grounds tamarack and cedar 
swamps are developed. Broad-leaf, summer-green forests 
prefer richer and deeper soils, and either combine in pure 
growths or are found interspersed among the conifers. 
Eight species of oak, one of chestnut, six of birch, two 



GREAT LAKE REGION 85 

of beech, two of hornbeam, two of walnut, and four of 
hickory (allied to the walnut), are common forest trees, 
in addition to several kinds of maple, plane, ash, and 
lime. The white elm is the tallest and strongest of all 
Canadian trees, barring the Weymonth and other pines. 
This gives a wealth of timber quite unknown to western 
Europe. The lumber industry is well developed, perhaps 
too well for the proper preservation of the forests, 
whose existence is now seriously threatened by the axe 
and the paper-pulp mill, which enjoy the advantage of 
unlimited water-power. Another activity is fur-hunting, 
which has its great market centre in Montreal. The 
poorer soil and the more rainy climate of eastern Canada 
do not allow that region to compete in the growth of 
cereals with the more generous and sunny West. On 
the other hand, it favours the development of good 
pastures, and consequently of mixed and dairy farming, 
and the cultivation of fruit of a northern and temperate 
type. The summer-green forests in southern Canada 
and New England are remarkable for the extraordinary 
brilliancy of their autumn colours, the sugar maple 
being quite exceptional in that respect ; and the humbler 
vegetation, while much richer than that of our country, 
is very similar in aspect and in mode of life. 

Appalachian Region. South of the great coniferous 
belt is a vast region, the core of which is formed by the 
mountain system of the Appalachians. It is, or was, 
almost entirely forest-clad, and the type of its forests is 
the summer-green, broad-leaf variety, with an admixture 
of conifers. 

An abundant rainfall all the year round, moderate 
winds and temperature, and a soil on the whole fairly 
rich, offer conditions which are admirably suited to a 
heavy tree-growth of the most luxuriant mild-temperate 



86 NORTH AMERICA 

kind. At the same time, the great diversity of the relief 
and of the soil permits of a large variety in the form 
of the forests and their components. As a rule the 
broad-leaf type is found on the richer soils, and largely 
predominates west of the Appalachians. Pine and other 
coniferous forests are found in greater proportion in the 
east and on porous sandy soils. 

The circum- Appalachian region offers an admirable col- 
lection of broad-leaf and summer-green trees and shrubs 
requiring a relatively moist climate. Indeed, the wealth 
and variety of these forests almost challenge comparison 
with the rich flora and luxuriant vegetation of eastern 
Asia, in a similar climatic situation, and surpass any- 
thing seen even in south-eastern Europe. When, in past 
ages, the polar ice invaded the now temperate latitudes, 
the vegetation of eastern North America and Asia found 
shelter in the southern extensions of those continents. 
On the retreat of the ice, the new plant population of 
the lands thus laid bare was mostly recruited from these 
rich southern floras. In Europe and western Asia the 
earlier flora was stopped in its retreat by the Mediter- 
ranean and the mountain barriers running east to west 
and destroyed : the plant population which arose after- 
wards was mostly drawn from the east. 

The catalogue of trees of the temperate type in eastern 
North America includes many species of oak, walnut, 
hickory, chestnut, birch, 'alder, hazel-nut, hornbeam, 
willow, poplar, elm, magnolia, tulip-tree, maclura, 
laurel, sassafras, plane, maple, ash, robinia (our common 
acacia), horse-chestnut, and allied trees. Conifers are 
represented chiefly by pines. Among the countless 
shrubs of the undergrowth, numerous species of 
rhododendron and magnolia are the most remarkable, 
with kalmia, and several shrubs allied to it and to 



APPALACHIAN REGION 87 

the rhododendron. Our common Virginia creeper has its 
true home there, and the autumnal beauty of its foliage 
may serve to give an idea of the gorgeous colours of 
autumn in the Great Lake district. 

This vast region is so varied that it naturally falls 
into large divisions or provinces, each with a character 
and a plant-world of its own. The wide terrace which 
extends at the rear of the lower coastal plain up to the 
foothills of the central Appalachians shows a transition 
between the lake region and the more luxuriant south, 
as far as vegetation is concerned. It possesses, amid the 
deciduous forests, a large admixture of patches and 
clumps of conifers, the Weymouth pine and the red 
spruce being the chief of these. On the whole, the 
vegetation of this- belt is similar to that of central 
Europe. 

On the seaward side, this terrace is followed east of 
the line New York- Washington by a lower and much 
indented coastal shelf, whose dry, sandy-gravelly soil 
can only support pine-forests and a meagre flora. These 
constitute the so-called ' Pine-Barrens '. 

The Appalachian range, in its central and southern 
portions, was once almost entirely timber-clad, and still 
retains magnificent vestiges of its former wealth. In the 
central portion the forests are mixed: among other 
conifers, the Weymouth pine attains there heights of 
100 to 150 feet. Magnolias, rhododendrons, kalmias, 
and other shrubs form a dense and beautiful under- 
growth, sometimes overtopped by the tall pines, some- 
times by the deciduous trees. Above the limits of the 
broad-leaf forests, the black spruce and Fraser fir pre- 
dominate. The higher ridges and peaks are covered with 
subalpine heaths, composed of tall scrub and grassy 
glades. 



88 NORTH AMERICA 

Proceeding down the valleys of the southern Appa- 
lachians in a south-eastern direction, a regular series 
of belts parallel to the mountains and the coast is 
crossed: the sandy and gravelly foot-hills, a broad 
terrace resting on hard rock, and the alluvial coast plain 
or Eastern Valley. In each, the temperature becomes 
milder and more regular, the rainfall less abundant, 
and the soil more fertile. Correspondingly the ratio of 
conifers decreases and that of the broad-leaf evergreens 
increases, while the dominant type of vegetation re- 
mains the leaf-shedding forest, with a greater variety of 
species but, perhaps, a less luxuriant growth than in the 
mountains. The sequence of belts down to the sea-coast 
is broken by the interposition of a long strip of pine 
forest which runs parallel to the coast-line and round 
the extremity of the Appalachians, across the valley of 
the Mississippi, far into Texas. This pine belt exactly 
coincides with, and is due to, the development of rolling 
downs, sandy and porous. Beyond it commence the low 
mud flats of the shore intersected with marshes and 
lagoons, where the evergreen vegetation of the south is 
in evidence, and the transition to the vegetation of Flo- 
rida and the southern states is so gradual as to be 
imperceptible. 

The Atlantic lowlands, and to a large extent also 
the mountains, have been cleared of their timber ; the 
former, to make room for cultivation and industry, the 
latter simply to obtain the wood. The consequences 
attending the destruction of the mountain-forests have 
been, as usual, very serious : destructive floods, the ruin 
of the slopes, &c. : and protective measures have had to 
be resorted to. In the lowlands, agriculture, especially 
the growing of cereals, has no longer the importance it 
used to possess when the West was yet uncultivated. 



APPALACHIAN REGION 89 

Mixed farming for local needs is still practised, but the 
interest of this region now lies in other directions. 

South of Washington, in the rich Eastern Valley, the 
country is less industrialized; though cultivated fields 
of a southern type, with tobacco, cotton, and the fruits 
of warmer climates, have superseded the luxuriant 
summer-green forests. Free from the competition of the 
wheat- and maize-growing West, agriculture plays a more 
important part than in the north. The sandy pine-belt 
yields only lumber and wood products. 

West of the Appalachians. The country west of the 
Appalachians is formed by the Alleghany and Cumber- 
land plateaus, continued westward by the lower and 
undulating plateaus of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. 
Here the climate is not so mild as in the east ; winters 
are colder, summers warmer, and the rain does not fall 
so regularly throughout the year. In spite of such 
minor differences, comparable with those which exist 
between the rainy belt of western Europe and the more 
extreme central portion, the climate is primarily favour- 
able to the growth of the so-called ' hardwood ' or broad- 
leaf, non-coniferous forest type. The soil is fertile, and 
the whole country was a fairly continuous forest prior 
to the dense settlement of man. 

Rivers are screened by dark and marshy woods, and 
luxuriant meadows cover the heavier bottom-lands. On 
higher ground rise forests comprising many kinds of 
oak, hickory, and a rich variety of leaf-shedding trees : 
the ridges of the hills naturally bear lighter forests. 
The vegetation, on the whole, is very much like, but not 
so luxuriant arid diversified as, that across the Appa- 
lachians; it constitutes really a step towards the drier 
conditions of the west. Here is the true home of the 
common 'acacia' (more accurately robinia, or false 



90 NORTH AMERICA 

acacia) and other similar leguminous trees, such as 
gleditschia and gymnocladus. 

On the dry limestone heights of Tennessee there are 
forests of tall junipers, producing that excellent red 
wood which serves for pencils. The so-called 'cedar- 
glades' continue down to Alabama, and forests of this tree 
are also found in Florida. Gradually, however, as one 
goes south, the number of evergreen trees and shrubs 
increases. Mixed forests of summer-green and evergreen 
components now mark a step towards the sub-tropical 
vegetation of the southernmost States, and evergreen 
magnolias become abundant. 

The low and broad alluvial plain of the Mississippi 
valley, across which the mighty river has thrown vast 
swamps, with a dense network of sluggish, meandering 
arms called ' bayous ', is particularly well irrigated and 
fertile. It is difficult to distinguish the forests which 
cover it either from the sub- tropical rain- forests or from 
the summer-green type of the plateaus ; the Mississippi 
valley offers all transitions from one to the other with 
a tendency towards the luxuriance of the south. A long 
way up the river, the bayou country favours the ex- 
tension of the rain-forests into the cooler regions. 
Beyond the plain of the Mississippi, according with a 
gradual decrease of rainfall, the higher plains of Arkansas 
and eastern Texas possess lighter and poorer woodlands, 
which herald the approach of the western prairies. 

The vast region which extends from the Appalachians 
to the prairies is one of the largest granaries of the 
world. Agriculture, in spite of the intrusion of other 
industries, continues to play an important part in the 
life of the country ; owing to the wealth of water- and 
rail-ways, it is afforded an almost unlimited scope. 
Wheat in the north, maize south of the forty-second 



WEST OF THE APPALACHIANS 91 

parallel, are grown in enormous quantities, and 
tobacco still remains a staple product of Kentucky and 
Tennessee. South of the thirty-seventh parallel, con- 
ditions are suitable for the growth of cotton, which, 
from Texas to the Atlantic, becomes the chief crop; 
indeed, the southern States are the most important 
cotton producers in the world, for it requires a well- 
watered soil, though otherwise adapted to somewhat dry 
climatic conditions. Sugar-cane has long been grown 
in the southern States, but there is a tendency towards 
limiting it to the warmer climate of the West Indies, 
Mexico, and inter-tropical regions. This rich agricultural 
centre of the States has long been the mainstay of the 
wealth of the country, and must remain so, in spite of 
the invasion of industry. Its importance is so far- 
reaching that the condition of its crops is anxiously 
watched year by year in other countries which depend 
on it for the raw materials of many of their 
manufactures. 

For a long time, also, the American forests of those 
parts have supplied the world with valuable timber, 
but on account both of their rapid disappearance and 
of the growing consumption at home, they are no longer 
able to do so to the same extent as formerly. 

Southern States. The Atlantic shelf up to Cape 
Hatteras, and the northern shores of the Mexican Sea, 
enjoy a warm and rainy climate, whose expression in 
the plant-world is the evergreen rain-forest of a tem- 
perate type; but the variety of conditions of the soil 
induces a corresponding diversity in the flora and 
curtails the area belonging to the rain-forest proper. 
On the northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico, nearest to 
the beach, comes a strip of sandy downs tenanted by 
swamp-pines and sabal palmettos. Behind this curtain 



92 NOETH AMERICA 

extends a belt of swamps and moorland, frequently 
flooded, and covered with reeds and sedges. It is the 
abode of the tall swamp- or bald-cypresses which lose 
their needles in winter. The terraces and hummocks 
between and beyond the marshes are clad with evergreen 
temperate forests, in which the incense-tree or liquidam- 
bar, the evergreen or Virginia oak, predominate, often 
draped entirely with the lichen-like epiphyte tillandsia. 
Evergreen magnolias, rhododendrons and other shrubs 
of the same family are in evidence in the undergrowth, 
where tall cane thickets give a touch of the Tropics. 
Mixed forests of pines and oaks follow on the higher 
and rolling slopes which lead up to the tableland of 
limestone, which unfolds a park landscape of prairies, 
scrub, and forests of a hard-leaf evergreen character 
and where the 'cedar-glades 1 of Tennessee recur. 
Further inland the plateau is interrupted by the great 
pine-belt which extends over sands and sandy loams far 
into Carolina. This vegetation is carried also into 
Texas, while the belt of coast-swamps nearly reaches 
the delta of the Rio Grande. Where the nature of the 
ground allows it, the southern States have a prosperous 
agriculture of a sub-tropical type, cotton, sugar-cane, 
and tobacco being the staple crops, worked by means of 
negro labour. 

Texas. Westward from the Gulf of Mexico, beyond 
the dense cane- and cypress- swamps and damp coast- 
meadows, there is a gradual ascent to a plateau rising 
by successive broad terraces to a height of about 
4,000 feet. The lower terraces are naturally much 
eroded and form a belt of rolling land, which is mainly 
composed of light, sandy loams and clays. This region 
has a distinct season of heavy rains of about ten weeks' 
duration, the rest of the year being nearly dry. 



TEXAS 93 

The landscape is that of a very open park dotted with 
light trees, such as the acacia-like mesquite, walnuts, and 
others, either single or in sparse groves, resembling open 
oak-copses. The grass grows taller than that v of the 
more northern prairies, and is also more diversified. 
Limestone hills, naturally drier, are covered with a 
scrub of thorny shrubs, which shed their leaves during 
the period of drought. The mesquite and allied species, 
various kinds of acacias and other Leguminosae, with 
a light foliage and stunted growth, compose this scrub 
or ' chaparral ', which farther west becomes such a special 
feature of the landscape. 

At last the great Staked Plain, or Llano Estacado, is 
reached. It is an almost level and typically semi-arid 
short grass country, with a fine loose soil. Here new types 
from the hot and dry regions give a peculiar stamp to 
the vegetation : they are the well-known yuccas, agaves, 
cacti, cerei, opuntias, and other fleshy or 'succulent' 
plants, many of which yield fibres. These plains are 
rich in bulbs and tubers, and most plants have deep, 
swollen roots. Extensive salt clay tracts are strewn 
over the surface of the Llano, all marked by strands, and 
open colonies of the usual succulent salt-bushes. 

Towards the Rio Grande, the character of the vegeta- 
tion becomes still drier. Grass grows scarce, and is only 
represented by dense bunches of stiff straw. On the 
naked, stony soil of the rolling downs a scattered brush 
appears, almost entirely composed of the prickly bunches 
of the yuccas, sotol, agaves, &c., studded with giant cerei 
and tree opuntias. This is the margin of the desert 
of New Mexico and Arizona, which extends beyond the 
Rio Grande over into Mexico. The valley of the latter 
river, now contracting into a canon clad with scrub, now 
expanding into a rich alluvial and agricultural plain, 



94 NORTH AMERICA 

now thrown into broken ground, much eroded, with 
ruined tables or * mesas ' left standing, offers a large 
variety of landscape. The flat tops of the dry mesas 
have but a poor, semi-desert brush of leafless shrubs, 
cacti, bushy composites, and scanty bunch-grass. 

The Llano Estacado and the transition zone of Texas 
can be largely used for cattle-breeding ; part of Texas 
is indeed a country of ranches, where cattle are left to 
roam and find their own food over vast areas. Along the 
rivers one comes across agricultural strips, but in the 
arid sotol districts little can be done apart from the 
slow cultivation of fibre-plants. Cotton is naturally 
confined to alluvial tracts where irrigation is possible ; 
yet these tracts cover a sufficient surface to constitute 
one of the main assets of Texas and north-east Mexico. 
The water-melon and other fruits are also cultivated 
extensively. 

The Grass Belt. Broadly speaking, west of the 100 
meridian, up to the long Rocky chains, stretches a vast 
region with a type of vegetation different from that 
already described; it consists of flat or rolling plains, 
rising westward to the foot of the mountains. The most 
important feature of its climate is dryness, due to its 
central position in the great body of land and its con- 
sequent distance from the sources of moisture, the seas. 
The rainfall hardly rises above a yearly average of 
20 inches, and is most abundant at the growing season. 
Summers are scorching and winters very hard in the 
north and centre. 

The conditions of the vegetation throughout the great 
grass-belt are very uniform. Over large territories the 
endless table-like plains stretch, only furrowed by sunk 
and invisible valleys. 'No trees, no shrubs, no tall 
herbs ' ; but dull green close swards of buffalo-grass or 



THE GRASS BELT 95 

grama-grass, two or three inches high, among which 
dwarf herbs are scattered. These grasses are very low 
and dry-looking, with narrow, rolled-in, wire-like leaves; 
by means of their runners, they make a dense, velvety 
carpet upon the thick felt mat of their tangled roots. 
The power of the soil to retain moisture naturally 
exercises a great influence where water is so scarce, 
and the composition of the sward varies accordingly. 
Buffalo-grass is prominent, often exclusively present, on 
clay or sandy grounds, whilst grama-grass and prairie 
grass are more abundant on loams. 

Now and then the flat plain heaves up into rolling 
wolds, or even into undulations. The ridges then pre- 
serve the dry steppe aspect, but the troughs assume an 
appearance more or less approaching that of our pastures. 
On porous soils, prickly plants, small species of opuntias 
or prickly pears, and cerei are in evidence. Towards 
the eastern margins, plants grow taller, flowers are more 
abundant, and the prairie gradually passes to the meadows 
of the east. On the poorest and most permeable territories, 
like those on the north of the Platte River, the prairie 
approximates to the true desert and forms what is known 
as the ' Bad-Lands ' : arid tracts, hilly, creviced, and 
broken, on the loose soil of which frequently ' not a speck 
of green is visible'. Where vegetation appears, it is 
composed now of dwarf cacti and prickly pears, now of 
small, fleshy-leaved, thorny bushes one or two feet high ; 
further on of patches of woolly, greyish eurotia (Com- 
positae). Another variety of the prairie landscape is 
found on the sand-hills which extend in a broken belt 
over parts of Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas: 
these rolling downs are covered with a sparse crop of 
bunch-grasses. As the great plains slowly rise to meet 
the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains they undulate 



THE GRASS BELT 97 

more and more heavily. The grama now becomes the 
typical grass; wormwood bushes mingle with it and 
finally replace it to form a pure * sage-brush* on the 
foot-hills. 

The sunk valleys which break the flat or rolling sur- 
face of the prairies provide the eastern forest vegetation 
with paths along which it reaches to the heart of the 
grass- country. Fringing woods accompany the rivers 
a very long way up, composed of the usual kinds of 
broad-leaf deciduous trees : oaks, elms, lime-trees, wal- 
nuts, and hickories, with the robinia-like trees gymno- 
cladus, gleditschia, and a few others. 

Towards Texas the vegetation is gradually enriched 
by the appearance of southern plants, which already 
impress upon the Llano Estacado a stamp quite different 
from that of the central and northern prairies ; indeed, 
it belongs to a distinct region. On tl\e east the great 
treeless plains are not sharply defined from the forest 
lands of the Mississippi ; it is only gradually that the 
forests of the central region become poorer, thinner, and 
more stunted. Islands of trees, then of bushes, lost amid 
the sea of grass, give the landscape the features of a, 
park, and constitute a belt of so-called * bush prairie ' 
round the treeless area. The park prairie extends into 
Iowa, approaching the Great Lakes, as a sort of bay 
into the forest region. The banks of streams, the 
moister hollows, the slopes and foots of the rises, and 
other favourable localities still retain clumps and patches, 
of deciduous trees throughout this intermediate belt. 
The most extensive of these tree-islands is thrown 
athwart the middle course of the Reel, Canadian, and 
Arkansas rivers ; it is known as the * Cross Timbers \ 
and covers most of the Indian territory. 

The Great Prairie is the replica of the Great Russian 

1159.1 H 



98 NORTH AMERICA 

and Asiatic steppes, and is due to similar causes. Until 
recently its substantial buffalo and grama grasses sup- 
ported large herds of bison and numerous other animals. 
These are now replaced by half -domesticated cattle, 
tended by mounted herdsmen known as cow-boys. If, 
however, the prairies are thus almost exclusively 
pastoral, irrigation has been the means of rendering 
available part of their naturally fertile soil for agricul- 
tural purposes, as the demand for cereals has increased. 
This is especially the case for the generous lands of 
Canada bordering on the Great Northern forest, south 
and west of Winnipeg. There is a striking parallel 
between the lines of modern development of the great 
temperate grass areas of the world : the Russian steppe, 
the Argentine pampa, the African veldt, and the American 
prairie : they are becoming the main granaries of the 
world. The American prairie, however, enjoys the 
superiority of greater water-power and easier communi- 
cations. 

The Western Mountains. The winds from the Pacific 
are the mainsprings of life in western North America. 
On their moisture and distribution in relation to the 
features of the relief depend the manifold changes in 
the vegetation. Moisture decreases from the coast to 
the inland mountains, and, on the whole, also from north 
to south. The windward are moister than the leeward 
slopes ; again, low-lying areas are drier than the ridges, 
and moisture increases with altitude up to a belt of 
greatest rainfall, above which it diminishes rapidly. 
The plains lying between the mountain ranges are 
naturally arid as compared with the neighbouring 
slopes. For all these reasons, western North America 
may be described broadly as a succession of three parallel 
wooded chains separated by arid troughs and plateaus. 



THE WESTERN MOUNTAINS 99 

Of the three main ranges, the Coast and the Cascade 
chains may be grouped together as representing a rnoister 
system; while the Rocky Mountains, separated from 
these by a series of broad plateaus, form a much drier 
eastern wing. Only at one point in the Columbia- 
Frazor district, thanks to the gap in the western barrier 




FIG. 2G. The prairie passing into a brush of summer-green buslies 
and small birches Wheat zone, Western Canada. 

through which the river Frazer flows, does the inland 
chain share some of the moisture and luxuriance of the 
coast-ranges. 

The forests of Pacific North America are almost ex- 
clusively composed of conifers. Why this should be so 
is not satisfactorily explained yet. It is quite certain 
that many of the varied climates and soils, as they 

H 2 



100 NORTH AMERICA 

stand at the present time, are eminently suitable for at 
least an abundant admixture of broad-leaf summer- 
green forests, and that similar circumstances, at the 
other end of South America, in southern Chile, in New 
Zealand, and in Europe, favour the development of such 
broad-leaf trees. It is therefore likely that the cause of 
the exclusive predominance of conifers here will be found 
mainly in the geological history of the country. 

The northern half of the coast-ranges enjoys a rather 
moist and temperate climate ; even the seaward slopes 
of the southern Alaskan range have a comparatively 
mild winter. Hence the coniferous forests in these 
regions, south to latitude 43, display a luxuriance un- 
surpassed in any part of the world. The predominant 
forms, spruces, firs, douglasias, tsugas, possess heavy 
crowns ; the lighter pine form is subordinate. Towards 
the mouths of the Columbia and Frazer these forests 
reach their maximum of wealth and density on the 
seaward slopes : heavy crops of gigantic trees, and a 
ground encumbered with a tangle of dead wood, padded 
with thick layers of mould, and carpeted with mosses 
and ferns. 

Though the variety of tree-forms decreases as one 
goes towards Alaska, the seaward slopes of the Pacific 
coast mountains continue to enjoy a mild and humid 
climate up to Cook's Inlet. They display, in contrast 
to the central Alaskan plateau and the Rocky Moun- 
tain chain on the north of it, the same luxuriant type of 
hemlock-spruce and cedar forests ; South Alaska indeed 
presents the appearance of a beautiful mountain park 
pleasantly diversified by rich, flowery meadows. Above 
1,200 feet the park landscape changes to sub-alpine 
pastures dotted with groves of alders and willows ; and 
a treeless belt of alpine grasses reaches to the snow- 



THE WESTERN MOUNTAINS 101 

line. In point of structure and vegetation the Columbian- 
Alaskan coast, with its ever-moist climate, strikingly 
recalls that of southern Chile and, nearer to us, of Norway. 




FIG. 27. Pine forest bordering meadow. High plateau 
in the Rocky Mountains. 

These forests abound in large animals, among which 
wild sheep are to be found. Naturally the chief in- 
dustries are concerned with timber; but the rivers, 



102 NORTH AMERICA 

teeming with fish, are another source of wealth. In 
short, this northern Pacific coast affords a picture of 
what the west coasts of Scotland and Ireland were like 
previous to their complete ruin by man, with this differ- 
ence, that the species of trees in our countries were not 
so varied. The numerous islands are similarly clothed 
with conifers. 

The eastern or landward slopes are decidedly drier. 
In Alaska the timber-growth on the northern slopes 
of the coast-range is much more scattered and loose, and 
belongs to the * scattering ' belt of the North Canadian 
forest. 

Further south, the difference between the sea- and 
land-slopes is marked by the abundance of the pine- 
type on the inland side, and the thinner, shorter, 
and poorer forest-growth. An increasingly meagre and 
smaller kind of forest is carried along the coast-range 
proper down to San Francisco : the Californian portion 
which follows on the south is no longer timbered ; thin 
woodland patches of some extent can only be seen 
occasionally. The predominant vegetation is now the 
' chaparral ' or scrub ; yet in northern California the 
Californian red- wood, with the Monterey cypress, form 
stately forests with a dense undergrowth of hard-leaf 
evergreens. 

Behind the coast-range, and still able, thanks to their 
superior elevation, to condense a fair amount of moisture 
from the sea-winds, the southern Cascades offer in a 
lighter form the same vegetation, in which douglasias, 
tsugas, and spruces are conspicuous. The sugar-pine 
attains here the largest proportions, and several kinds 
of silver-firs are found on the upper slopes. The eastern 
slopes are again poorer, for the forest growth becomes 
patchy and scattered, with hardly any cover on the 



THE WESTERN MOUNTAINS 



103 



naked ground. Pines now preponderate, and among 
them the yellow pine, the most valuable and widespread 
timber of the west. Here, again, the southern portions 
are notably drier and more barren than the northern. 

South of Mount Shasta moisture is still scantier, and, 
henceforth, in the Sierra Nevada, the westward slopes 
are invaded by a number of species which heretofore 




FIG. 28. View in the Rocky Mountains, showing pines 
and Douglas firs. 

were confined to the eastern side. The high forest, 
which rises above a belt of chaparral, consists of much 
the same trees as that of the Cascades, in addition to 
southern species. The chief ornament of the southern 
Sierra Nevada is the broken patchy belt of Big-Trees, 
of which a few thousands are still left, now protected 
against destruction. 



104 NORTH AMERICA 

The forests on the Pacific side of the Rocky Moun- 
tains afford but a ragged mantle : in the Alaskan region 
the thin groves of spruce are limited to the secluded 
southern valleys : in British Columbia the stunted form 
of the Murray pine predominates in thin woodlands; but 
on the upper reaches of the Columbia River the moist 
winds penetrate farther inland, and with them, some of 
the western types, the Douglas and the yellow pine 
among them, extend to the Pacific slopes of the Rockies. 

Further south the mountains assume a decidedly park- 
like appearance, with forests in patches, or large copses 
on the naked slopes. They are clear and open, without 
undergrowth, and confine themselves more and more to 
the canons and the higher altitudes. Towards the head- 
waters of the Colorado River, and south of them, sufficient 
moisture from clouds, rains and snow is restricted to 
a belt of 2,000 or 3,000 feet at an elevation of 9,000 to 
10,000 feet, giving thin forests on the upper slopes which, 
with the pastures of the lofty plateaus, form here 
a veritable park region of some luxuriance, far above the 
adjacent arid lands. 

Probably because it remains too low, the Wasatch 
branch of the eastern mountain system is still more 
barren, and displays only a stunted and loose type of 
woodland on its rocky slopes. The close forests of the 
north, favoured not so much by rainfall as by the layers 
of snow which soak the ground in winter, do not recur 
until the edge of the Colorado plateau, the higher mesas 
such as the Mogollon, or the higher peaks such as the 
San Francisco, are reached. Here, above a belt of dwarf- 
pine and juniper or pinon rises, from 8,500 to 12,000 feet, 
the high forest which is arranged, in order of increasing 
altitudes and precipitations, into the three zones of pine, 
fir, and spruce. 




FIG. 29. Big trees in the Coastal Forests of British Columbia. The size of the 
people gives some idea of the gigantic size of the trees. 



106 



NORTH AMERICA 



The western ranges have furnished, for a long time, 
an abundant supply of timber, the yellow pine and 
the Douglas or red fir being considered the most valu- 
able. The Canadian portion has been little touched so 
far, except by forest fires ; but in the United States the 
axe and the fires have wrought immense harm to the 
forests, and entire districts have been laid bare. This is 






FIG. 30. Aspen forest in Colorado, 

the more serious as one goes further south, where 
drought does not allow the vegetation to recover so 
rapidly as in the moister north, and whole chains have 
been denuded down almost to the rock, with disastrous 
results. In other parts, especially in California, where 
mines have exhausted the surrounding districts, the 
useless chaparral-scrub has extended considerably over 
former timber areas. Now, however, a large number of 



THE WESTERN MOUNTAINS 107 

forest reserves have been created with a view not only 
to protecting the mountains themselves and the adjacent 
lowlands, but to preventing the further extension of 
reckless and harmful lumbering. 

Interment Plateaus of the Pacific. Between the 
Pacific coast-systems of mountains and the Rocky Chain 
there stretches a succession of broad plateaus of varying 
height and character. All of these, screened from the 
Pacific winds by the mountain barriers, are naturally 
drier than the adjacent slopes. North of the Columbia 
River they bear a park-like aspect, south of it they are 
treeless and arid. The Yukon plateau, the northern- 
most, has that scattered tree-growth which is character- 
istic of the northern belt of the Canadian forest. The 
meagre grass-land, varied by meadows and swamps, is 
studded, over large areas, with isolated spruce trees. 
Connected and denser forests cover only the margins of 
the Yukon and its main tributaries and their alluvial 
flats. With the aspen or cottonwood, the spruce pene- 
trates into the valleys of the mountain-chains on both 
sides of the plain. Lying at a greater elevation and 
fissured by deep valleys, the Columbian plateau presents 
flat grassy tops of a sub-alpine type, dotted, like the 
Rocky margin, with small Murray pines. The deep 
canons alone are well wooded, and enable the coast-forest 
to penetrate far inland. 

The Frazer-Columbia district has been already men- 
tioned as being happily situated for favouring the inroads 
of the western vegetation. On the south it is bordered 
by a hilly belt of broad-leaf, winter-bare woodland, 
consisting mostly of aspen, and dying out towards the 
Columbia River. The Columbia plateau affords good 
grazing-grounds, while the forests of its valleys are well 
stocked with timber : game and fish are plentiful, and the 



THE WESTERN MOUNTAINS 107 

forest reserves have been created with a view not only 
to protecting the mountains themselves and the adjacent 
lowlands, but to preventing the further extension of 
reckless and harmful lumbering. 

Interment Plateaus of the Pacific. Between the 
Pacific coast-systems of mountains and the Rocky Chain 
there stretches a succession of broad plateaus of varying 
height and character. All of these, screened from the 
Pacific winds by the mountain barriers, are naturally 
drier than the adjacent slopes. North of the Columbia 
River they bear a park-like aspect, south of it they are 
treeless and arid. The Yukon plateau, the northern- 
most, has that scattered tree-growth which is character- 
istic of the northern belt of the Canadian forest. The 
meagre grass-land, varied by meadows and swamps, is 
studded, over large areas, with isolated spruce trees. 
Connected and denser forests cover only the margins of 
the Yukon and its main tributaries and their alluvial 
flats. With the aspen or cottonwood, the spruce pene- 
trates into the valleys of the mountain-chains on both 
sides of the plain. Lying at a greater elevation and 
fissured by deep valleys, the Columbian plateau presents 
flat grassy tops of a sub-alpine type, dotted, like the 
Rocky margin, with small Murray pines. The deep 
canons alone are well wooded, and enable the coast- forest 
to penetrate far inland. 

The Frazer-Columbia district has been already men- 
tioned as being happily situated for favouring the inroads 
of the western vegetation. On the south it is bordered 
by a hilly belt of broad-leaf, winter-bare woodland, 
consisting mostly of aspen, and dying out towards the 
Columbia River. The Columbia plateau affords good 
grazing-grounds, while the forests of its valleys are well 
stocked with timber : game and fish are plentiful, and the 



108 NORTH AMERICA 

salmon- packing industry is very active. The lower 
Frazer and Columbia valleys are extensively cultivated 
for wheat. 

East of the Cascades, and closed in on all sides by 
mountains, the plain of the lower Columbia River, 
situated at a low level, is treeless, smooth, and grassy, 
and recalls the Great Prairies: it is well irrigated by 
a number of large rivers, and occupies the fertile bed 
of a former lake. Such conditions offer quite ex- 
ceptional opportunities for agriculture, and especially 
for wheat-growing. In easy communication with the 
Pacific ports, the Columbia plain is one of the most 
natural and best-defined wheat areas that can be found 
anywhere. All around its margins the foot-slopes of 
the mountains are covered with woodlands of cotton- 
wood and other winter-bare trees, while in the rear rise 
the pine-clad upper hills. 

Beyond the Blue Mountains, which limit this plain on 
the south, is a much more arid region in southern 
Oregon and Idaho, and here begins the great serni-desert, 
which stretches far into Mexico, and from the Sierra 
Nevada to the Rocky chain. Its general level above 
3,000 feet and its rainlessness render the climate 
extreme and arid. The northern part is largely covered 
with lava sheets, which have dammed up a number of 
lakes and thus caused marshes. At the foot of the 
Cascades lies a park landscape of meadows and wet 
moors, girdled with forests of aspen, above which rise 
pine-clad slopes, while the broken basalt tables remain 
barren. Farther east, dreary plains follow with thin 
brushes of ' sage ', a name which includes several kinds 
of bushy, hoary, and stunted artemisias or wormwood, 
and similar plants, with small, grey, woolly leaves. The 
sage-brush constitutes the background of the vegetation 



INTERMONT PLATEAUS OF THE PACIFIC 109 

over the whole tract down to the Mohave and Gila 
deserts. 

The Great Basin of Nevada differs in aspect from that of 
Oregon-Idaho, for countless short, parallel, rocky ridges 
and bluffs, all running in a general north-south direction, 
arise abruptly from its floor. Though rains be scarce, 
the waters of the casual showers collect in the troughs 




FIG. 31. Sage-brush. Colorado. 

of the irregular surface, which they line with clay and 
convert into evaporating pans, many of them covered 
with layers of alkaline efflorescence and absolutely barren: 
successive belts of succulent salt-bushes, rushes, grasses, 
and shrubs surround them. Outside the saline flats, and 
covering alike the valley plains, the gentle inclines of the 
mesas, the rounded foot-hills, and the lower mountain 
slopes, the very uniform vegetation consists almost 



110 NORTH AMERICA 

exclusively of the sage-brush, growing about three feet 
high, in a loose formation which is never an obstacle to 
the rider. With it may occur, according to the situation, 
a few similar bushes, with whitish, small, strong-scented 
leaves. This permanent vegetation is brightened, after 
showers, by the sudden outburst of a flora of dwarf 
annuals which disappears as quickly as it comes. Other 
biennial and perennial herbs likewise wither and dis- 
appear from the surface in July. 

The steep western slopes of the Wasatch Mountains are 
destitute of trees, dry and naked. From this chain to the 
Sierra Nevada, on the rocky slopes of all the ranges, is 
found, at an elevation of 5,000 to 7,000 feet, a thin 
sprinkling of western junipers and stunted, single-leaved 
pines, some ten to fifteen feet in height, and of low, compact 
habit. Only on the principal ranges, above 6,000 feet, 
can the mountain mahogany be met, clinging to the 
rocky ledges and on the dry inclines. The canons are 
lined with a ragged brush of pines, firs, and junipers. 
Where the ground water accumulates, however, the 
desert is graced by delightful oases, marked by the 
characteristic aspen, willow, poplar, and other leaf -shed- 
ding trees of a northern type. 

As will be seen, the vegetation of the Great Basin 
corresponds closely with that of the Algerian plateau in 
north-west Africa ; it may also be compared with a large 
portion of the plateau of Asia Minor. 

The Colorado plateau included between the Wasatch 
and the Rocky chains extends south to the line of the 
Mogollon Mountains, when it sinks abruptly along a much 
broken bluff down to the sweltering desert of Gila. It is 
a high tableland, cut up by deep and precipitous canons 
into large flat-topped blocks or mesas, arid and treeless, 
with a scanty plant-mantle of bunch-grass and grama- 



INTERMONT PLATEAUS OF THE PACIFIC 111 

grass, interspersed with colonies of low cacti. The canons 
vary greatly as regards vegetation ; some of them have 
naked walls with nothing but crooked pines sticking 




FIG. 82. A typical timbered canon in the 
Colorado Region. 

occasionally out of crevices; others are clothed with 
luxuriant and regular pine-forests, including the yellow 
pine and the douglas or red fir. 

A few valleys, like those of the Rio Grande and San- 



112 NORTH AMERICA 

Luis, are broad enough to permit of the development cf 
rolling, sandy, or gravelly wastes at the bottom, when 
artemisias and other sage-brush plants regularly recur. 
Agriculture is not altogether excluded from those tracts, 
if means be taken of preventing the surface evaporation 
of the soil, and of thoroughly utilizing the ground 
moisture : on these principles is based the system called 
' dry farming ' or dry-land farming, which has succeeded 
in wresting good maize crops out of what looked like 
mere sand wastes. Above the general level of the 
plateau rise a few mountain ranges which are able to 
catch the rain and the snow, and consequently are as 
a rule well wooded. Some of them unexpectedly reveal 
delightful Alpine corners with prosperous forests of 
conifers and aspen, luxuriant meadows, marshes, and 
pastures, in the midst of the general aridity. 

California. If the Great Basin, in respect of its vege- 
tation, recalls the Algerian plateau, California gives a 
striking replica of the Mediterranean landscape, and 
more especially of the Algerian tell. The Californian 
valley extends from the coast-range to the Sierra Nevada 
in continuation of the trough that separates the main- 
land of British Columbia from the coast islands, and is, 
in turn, continued southward as the Gulf of California. 
Lying in a hollow, and deprived of most of the moisture 
of the Pacific winds, it enjoys a moderate rainfall during 
the winter, and a pleasant warm temperate climate. 
The floor of the valley, which is, in places, naturally 
well watered, displays a park landscape in which the 
hard-leaf and evergreen vegetation is prominent. Dry 
grass steppes claim a large portion of its area, but ever- 
green oaks with small leathery leaves, the Californian 
laurel, cypresses, and a large number of evergreen shrubs, 
correspond to the similar plants of the Mediterranean. 



CALIFORNIA 113 

This parallel is still further exemplified in the ' chaparral', 
which is an exact replica of the European maquis, as 
far as the growth and mode of life of the plants are 
concerned, though the species may differ. The chaparral, 
with its impenetrable thickets of evergreen shrubs with 
leathery, prickly leaves, and thorny bushes, dwarf oaks, 
and others, is a feature of California : it extends along 
the sea-coast in a belt on the lower slopes of the ranges 
on either side of the valley, and is characteristic of the 
foot-hills of almost all the ranges in Arizona and New 
Mexico. It is also a predominant and ever-present feature 
in north-western Mexico and lower California, and much 
of it is doubtless due to the destruction of forests. The 
similarity between the two warm temperate regions of 
Europe and America is continued in the forests of conifers, 
the composition, habit, and undergrowth of which corre- 
spond, point for point, with similar forests of the 
Mediterranean. 

Quite naturally, California has borrowed its agriculture 
from the Old World : olive- and vineyards, orchards of 
peach-, orange-, and lemon-trees ; mulberry-trees for 
silk- worms, &c., have been adopted and, by means of new 
cultural methods, developed rapidly in the hope of 
soon eq.ualling the European produce. Those strenuous 
efforts have been attended already with some measure 
of success. The harder kinds of wheat are also grown 
extensively, along with maize and lucerne or alfalfa, on 
the tracts of dry grass, where ground water is available. 

The American Deserts. The Great Basin gradually 
passes, on the south, to the Mohave desert which extends 
beyond the Colorado, at the foot of the Arizona plateau, 
under the name of the Gila desert : a complete drought, 
a fierce heat, and an extremely dry and clear atmosphere 
are the features of this region. Compared with the 

1U9-1 I 



114 NORTH AMERICA 

African and Asiatic deserts, the American desert is re- 
markable for the extraordinary development of those 
fleshy, thorny, leafless, or apparently leafless, plants 
called succulents. Nowhere in the world is there such 
a combination of weird, ungainly, menacing shapes: 
giant candelabra-cerei of most diverse varieties, ma- 
millarias, opuntias, yuccas, agaves, dasilyrions, nolinas, 
&c. Hardly less strange are the leafless brushes of the 
creosote-bush (larrea) and the ocotillo (fouquiera) and 
the formidable spines of several thorn-bushes belonging 
to the acacia and mimosa type. A good many plants 
with strong underground stems only show themselves 
after the occasional showers. This water- storing vege- 
tation provides the rare native or traveller with 
a beverage which, such as it is, is often most necessary. 

Proceeding eastward, one has to cross a mountainous 
tract which is the northern spur of the western Sierra 
Madre : here the prickly chaparral resumes a prominent 
position in the landscape, and pine forests crown the 
summits and upper slopes. Not a few valleys collect 
the underground waters and develop good pastures, while 
some harbour delightful oases. 

Being destitute of large mammals, the American 
desert does not even afford a good hunting-ground, and 
the population is now dispersed in little communities 
along the eastern margin and the few large rivers. Yet, 
at one time, in more than one canon, and on the out- 
skirts of the plain, the Papagos Indians were able to 
evolve a fairly advanced system of agriculture based on 
extensive works of irrigation. These works reveal the 
past existence of a highly organized agricultural com- 
munity, of a centre of culture which has possibly 
disappeared in the ever present struggles between the 
nomads and the house builders. 



LOWER CALIFORNIA 115 

Lower California and Northern Sonora. Lower 

California is the southern spur of the coast-range 
and possibly of the Sierra Nevada, while the plain 
of Sonora continues the Colorado desert to the 
south. 

In point of aridity, the northern portion of the 




FIG. 83. Dry Cereus .scrub on steep slopes of a gorge- 
Mexico. 

peninsula and of the Sonoran coastal shelf compete 
with the Mohave-Gila region ; it is another land of 
thirst. The Pacific coast, barren and torrid, shelters 
a few strips of scattered chaparral in the troughs of 
the valleys, and occasionally tolerates short fringes of 
mangrove-bushes on the tidal marshes ; everywhere the 

I 2 



116 NORTH AMERICA 

climatic aridity is enhanced by the porous nature of the 
lava which covers most of the surface of the peninsula : 
but a material change intervenes towards the point 
of lower California, due to a combination of granite soil 
and irregular monsoon rains. In favourable places, 
wellnigh all tropical fruits, mango, papaw, banana, &c., 
can be successfully grown ; and on the longitudinal 
ridges of the peninsula are scattered coniferous woods. 
This region is practically uninhabited. 

The western coastal shelf of the mainland of Mexico 
becomes increasingly fertile towards the south. Numerous 
mountain torrents water the naturally generous soil; 
but while the mountains in the rear receive the benefit 
of the monsoons, the plains are too low to condense the 
moisture, and they remain half arid outside the narrow 
margins of the rivers. It is a land of ragged, dry 
pastures dotted with cacti and candelabra-cerei, and 
of prickly jungles or chaparral mostly composed of 
acacias. The sweltering marshes and lagoons which the 
rivers create along the Pacific coast support extensive 
palm-forests. At present thinly peopled, the western 
lowland of Mexico, if due advantage be taken of the 
facilities of irrigation, is favourably situated for semi- 
tropical and tropical agriculture. 

Ascending the Sierra Madre, one leaves behind the 
well-defined belts of vegetation which correspond to an 
increase of rainfall and mists, and to a lowering of 
temperature. The valleys become abundantly wooded 
and display a luxuriance only second to that of the 
tropical rain-forests, while the ridges remain semi-arid. 
Further up, the landscape turns more and more to a 
mountain park, extremely diversified, where pastures 
alternate with extensive forests of pines, firs, and ever- 
green oaks. By reason of the variety of climates from 



LOWER CALIFORNIA 117 

the coast to the summits, it may be said that all the 
agricultural produce of the earth can be grown in one 
or the other of these belts of vegetation; from rice, 
cotton, sugar-cane, oil-, and coco-palms through coffee 
and maize to wheat, oats, arid potatoes. The most 
important products, however, are coffee and maize, while 
cattle-breeding is rapidly increasing. Timber is actively 
exploited in some parts of the Sierra Madre. 

The Mexican Plateau Anahuac. From the Rio 
Grande southwards, the Mexican plateau rises and con- 
tracts gradually, bordered on both sides by a jagged 
rim of high mountains and broken by numberless short 
ranges. Extremely dry in the north, it enjoys towards 
the south a well-marked and fairly regular summer 
rainfall. Lower and broader, the hot plains of the north 
still belong to the margin of tropical semi-deserts. 
They stand intermediate between the arid lands beyond 
the Rio Grande and those of the Gila, and seem to com- 
bine the features of both ; cacti, agaves, and mesquites 
are still predominant. Vast, dreary areas are covered with 
a modified sage-brush of low, woody, greyish bushes, 
the most remarkable of which is the rubber bush or 
guayule. The inland drainage has developed broad 
alkaline swamps or bolsons accompanied, as usual, by 
salt-bushes and salt-pastures. Thanks, however, to the 
mountains, water-sources are numerous, and suffice to 
supply the extensive cattle-ranches and the industrial 
towns. 

The relief becomes more varied and the rainfall more 
regular and abundant towards the south and, accord- 
ingly, the aspect of the vegetation is more diversified. 
This portion of the plateau, which rises to 6,000 and 
7,000 feet above sea-level, has mild but dry winters 
and warm and moderately rainy summers. With this 



118 NORTH AMERICA 

climate, tree-growth requires a well-watered soil; but 
such conditions are seldom fulfilled, the soil being 
mostly porous arid the inland rivers remaining dry 
during the greater part of the year, or running in 




FIG. 84. Taxoclium trees Sncromonte, 
Amecameca (Mexico). 

very deep canons, whose lowest parts are frequently 
transformed into lagoons or swamps with no outlet. 
The hill ranges, once wooded to a large extent, are now 
mostly bare. Over the plains stretch vast steppes of 
scattered wiry bunch-grasses, which are hardly relieved 



THE MEXICAN PLATEAU 119 

by occasional groves of low trees. The countless 
lava sheets, which are strewn over the plateau, are 
marked by thickets of thorny cacti, yuccas, agaves, 
opuntias, and acacia bushes. In the moister valleys, 
which are not infrequent, pastures become quite 
luxuriant ; woodlands and groves of tall trees, deciduous 
and evergreen alike, thrive and increase; and maize 
and wheat are extensively cultivated. A notable feature 
of the upper part of the plateau is the cultivation of the 
agave whose fermented juice is a popular drink ; other 
agaves are also grown for their fibres. The rural in- 
dustries of the Mexican plateau depend almost exclusively 
on the capacity of the soil for retaining the moisture, 
and on the underground water-supply. Fertile agri- 
cultural valleys are not lacking, but over the larger part 
of the high plain only a modified kind of nomadic life, 
viz. cattle-ranching, is possible; irrigation, however, will 
in course of time open up vast territories. 

Of the temperate conditions and immense resources 
of the plateau of Anahuac, its ancient inhabitants, 
the Naliua, took full advantage: pastoral industries 
were unknown for lack of cattle, but they practised 
an intensive form of agriculture and gardening, superior 
to what was known in Europe at the same period of 
history ; vestiges of it are still to be seen in the ; Valley 
of Mexico '. The scientific works of irrigation, drainage, 
and water-supply which these populations carried out 
brought large areas under prosperous settlement and 
cultivation, so that when the European Conquistadores, 
who had not reached the same level of culture, wiped 
out the native civilization, they were unable to equal or 
replace those gigantic works. 

Atlantic Lowlands of Mexico and Southern Mexico. 
The Atlantic or Gulf slopes of the plateau are more 



120 NORTH AMERICA 

abundantly watered than the western Sierra Madre, and 
possess a still wider range of climate, vegetation, and 
agricultural possibilities. Fairly dry in the north, the 
eastern Sierra gradually enters into the moist tropical 
region, where the succession of vegetations from top to 
foot of the mountains is broadly as follows: on the 
upper slopes, which are largely of volcanic origin, there 
are imposing forests of conifers: in the temperate belt 
or ' tierra templada ' which receives the maximum of 
atmospheric moisture, the magnificent broad-leaf ever- 
green rain-forests of the valleys alternate with the tall 
coniferous forests of the ridges: further down, in the 
lower valleys, the rain- forest possesses all the profusion 
and features of the equatorial sqlva. Yet the rainfall has 
decreased, and outside the alluvial and well- watered 
portions, conditions are dry enough to favour the growth 
of those deciduous, low thornwoods and jungles which, 
in Brazil, are described as 'caatingas': the broad coastal 
plain or 'tierra caliente' is divided between the jungle 
and the grass savanas, on account of its reduced rainfall, 
but wherever the moisture of the soil compensates for the 
dryness of the atmosphere, the equatorial forest regains 
all its power. In Tabasco and Campeachy, mahogany, 
cedar, dyewoods, Mexican rubber, cacao, and vanilla are 
among the indigenous forest products. At this southern 
extremity of the plain, the rainy season, which was so 
short in the north, has lengthened so as to cover eight 
to nine months of the year and render the climate 
regularly hot and moist. This condition is reflected in 
the vigour of the dark forests which cover the plain 
and the hills. 

Thanks to the breach in the line of high plateaus 
which is known as the isthmus of Tehuantepec and to 
the wide opening of the Chiapas valley, the Atlantic 



ATLANTIC LOWLANDS OF MEXICO 121 

winds penetrate to the heart of the South Mexican mass 
of mountains, the features of whose vegetation repeat, on 
the whole, those just described : only the low plateau or 
plain of Yucatan owes more to the porous nature of its 
limestone than to its climate and displays a large develop- 
ment of savana and jungle, while the hilly interior is 



" t" ff '' ;" ' it : -^ 

/, 






FIG. 35. Dry scrub and cereus-trees on arid slopes. A small alluvial 
cone, the abundant vegetation of which supports a group of huts* 
Tuland valley, Mexico. 

abundantly wooded up to the heath- or brush-clad table 
tops. The inland and Pacific valleys are, by contrast, 
very hot and dry, assuming frequently the character of 
semi-deserts, with a scant vesture of acacia-scrubs or 
wastes of cacti and succulents. 

The civilizations high enough according to all avail- 
able records that preceded, and disappeared before, the 




FIG. 36. In a Florida Swamp. 



ATLANTIC LOWLANDS OF MEXICO 123 

invasions of Europeans, were primarily agricultural; 
though the Zapotecs and Mayas amongst others Have 
left stupendous ruins in southern Mexico. 

Florida and the West Indies. The southern shores 
of Florida with its Keys, and the low archipelago of the 
Bahamas, are bathed in the balmy and moist atmosphere 
created by the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. Under 
the influence of those favourable conditions, the flora of 
the warm temperate regions is stimulated to a supreme 
effort of vigour and beauty ; but the admixture of the 
more profuse plant types from the south is too limited 
to admit of the variety and luxuriance of truly tropical 
vegetation, to many features of which the plant-life of 
Florida closely approximates. Palms, lianas, and epi- 
phytes, while indeed pleasantly common, do not reach the 
lavish diversity and splendour of form of the inter- 
tropical world. This difference seems due to the isolation 
of the country, the state of sea- and air-currents, and 
to its geological history, more than to restrictions of 
the climate. 

Tropical conditions are fully attained across the 
channel, in Cuba, Hispaniola (Hayti), Jamaica, and the 
Lesser Antilles, which, on the east, span the gap between 
the two Americas. These islands are so situated as to 
receive the benefit of the trade-winds. The screen of 
mountains which forms the core of the Antilles is high 
enough to intercept the atmospheric moisture and leave 
the leeward slopes fairly dry; hence a marked dis- 
tinction between the two sides, which is particularly 
noticeable in the larger islands. Leaving aside minor 
differences, mainly in the flowering plants, the features 
of the vegetation of the West Indies so closely approach 
those of the mainland of Central America as to admit of 
a common description. Agriculture is the chief industry 



124 NORTH AMERICA 

of the islands to-day, as it was in the time of the 
aboriginal Cebunaya populations (related to the Mayas) 
which have vanished before the Europeans. 



CHAPTER III 

SOUTH AMERICA 

General. The wealth and variety of forms of plant- 
life in South America, offered perhaps by no other con- 
tinent, are due alike to its situation, its extension in 
latitude, to the height and disposition of its relief, and 
to its geological history. The greater extent of its 
area lies between the Tropics within the belts of 
equatorial rains and trade-winds. The effect of the 
constant equatorial heat and moisture is enhanced by 
the development of a huge alluvial plain which they 
have helped to create ; hence the Amazon selva has no 
equal in the world. 

Under the latitudes of the trade-winds, high marginal 
rims prevent the penetration of the moisture very far 
inland, a fact which favours the extension of broad 
savanas. Outside the Tropics, the lofty range of the 
Andes has the same effect on the westerly winds as the 
triple barrier of mountains has in North America ; hence 
a similar arrangement in the distribution of the large 
masses of vegetation, though the Patagonian semi-desert 
finds no equivalent in the northern continent. 

Central America. The whole land, including Central- 
America up to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and reaching 
south to theGulf of Guayaquil, eastward through northern 
Venezuela to Trinidad, along the slopes of the Andes and 



CENTRAL AMERICA 125 

their prolongation eastward, may be regarded as forming 
a natural region of tropical mountains. 

Varied as its landscape, climate, and vegetation are in 
detail, this region presents a fairly uniform character : 
mountain ranges or sierras stretch parallel to the Pacific 
coast-line, with occasional branches running east and 
west and an eastern spur forming the coast-ranges of 
northern Venezuela. Between the steep sierras, deep 
and sometimes broad valleys open into low sweltering 
plains. The coast-line on the Atlantic presents a flat 
and marshy tract of lowland as in Honduras, Cam- 
peachy, or Maracaibo ; or a narrow belt leading to 
rapidly rising slopes, as in Venezuela ; or, again, a broad, 
flat, rocky shelf as in Yucatan. Many of the mountain- 
tops expand into plateaus at 10,000 to 14,000 feet of 
elevation, and are known in Colombia as 'paramos'. 
The climate is naturally varied owing to differences in 
altitude, and falls into a western or Pacific drier portion, 
depending chiefly for its moisture on local monsoons, 
and an eastern more rainy portion, largely under the 
control of the Atlantic trade- winds. The year is divided 
into a rainy season, which lasts, according to locality, 
from six to nine months or more, and a dry and burning 
hot weather. In the south, there are two dry and two 
wet periods. 

On the Atlantic side the coastal plains are covered 
with a succession of savanas, where light clumps of 
acacias and other short, fine-leaf trees, or isolated tall 
ceibas and groves of palms stand conspicuous. They are 
fringed seaward by arid dunes, either bare or covered 
with dense, low evergreen scrub, and are inter- 
rupted by alluvial tracts of heavy tropical rain-forests, 
chiefly known for their mahogany, rubber, cacao, 
vanilla, dyewoods, and palms. The wealth in palms, 



126 SOUTH AMERICA 

however, is not so great here as in other tropical regions. 
The low, marshy forests are frequently fringed with 
shallow lagoons, mangrove, or brackish, swamps, which 
are belted with swamp forests, or hidden by tall and 
thick hedges of grass and reeds. 




FIG. 37. Undergrowth of a. tidal 'bayou* in iniertrop'cal country. 

In many places the forest has been cut down or burnt 
when a kind of savana takes its place, or plantations 
have developed, including sugar-cane, coco-palm, cacao, 
and rubber, along with bananas, pineapple, cotton, maize, 



CENTRAL AMERICA 127 

and tobacco, papaw, mango, &c. : rice is, on the whole, 
seldom grown. This kind of vegetation may be carried 
to elevations of 2,500 to 3,000 feet. 

The slope of the hills, especially where the gradient is 
very steep, is covered with sparse forests of evergreen 
oak and strawberry-tree (arbutus), or other short, stout 
trees, resembling in many ways the Mediterranean oak 
woods. Farther up, the tropical pines make their 
appearance, and constitute a zone of tall, gloomy forests 
with little undergrowth. At about 3,000 feet the rain- 
forest changes its character, and tree ferns, small 
palrns, and bambus become conspicuous in the under- 
wood, whereas epiphytes, lianas and climbers decrease 
in size, if not in diversity and number. Higher again 
this warm rain-forest gives way to another less profuse 
and lower variety, in which the number of leaf-shedding 
trees increases until they are in turn replaced by pine 
forests on the drier ridges. 

The high wind-swept plateaus are either lightly 
covered with thin and stunted pine woods, as in the 
north of this region, or, at greater elevations, merely 
clad with a heath-brush, suggesting a bilberry heath. 
The sierras which rise above the timber line are capped 
by an alpine zone. Of the Colombian paramos, the 
lowest may present the appearance of an open bush- 
prairie, while the highest display a truly alpine carpet 
of stunted heath, wool-clad plants, low tussocks of stiff 
grass, or cushion plants scattered over the bare floor. 
Among these, in groups or solitary, stand the curious 
4 frailezones ', with stout, shaggy bodies, and woolly 
heads. 

In all this region, the inland valleys are, as a rule, 
much drier than the Atlantic slopes, except where they 
are open to the north and north-east winds. The 



128 



SOUTH AMERICA 



contrast between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts is 
generally striking ; instead of luxuriant forests, the 
inland slopes display only varieties of dry vegetation. 




Fit*. 38. Physical Features of South America. 

Thin, grey patches of leafless and thorny scrubs, vast 
wastes of cacti, prickly pear, agaves, and prickly acacias, 
alternate with light evergreen woods. Higher up begin 




FIG. 39. Mean Temperature of South America in January reduced to sea-level. 

FIG. 40. Mean Temperature of South America in July reduced to bea-level. 

FIG. 41. Mean Annual Rainfall of South America. 

FIG. 42, Seasonal Distribution of Rainfall in South America. 



Lof fcy Mounledn 
Desert CZ3 

Scrub 

Sleppe Poor 
Steppe Rick 




FIG. 43. Vegetation of South America, 



CENTRAL AMERICA 131 

more regular forests of mixed pines, oaks, and evergreen, 
hard-leaf trees and shrubs, strikingly like mediter- 
ranean woodlands. The South American species which, 
in the south, replace the flora of the northern continent, 
retain the same forms of growth and leave the general 
aspect of the vegetation unchanged. 

In Colombia and Ecuador, the equatorial regimen of 
rainfall being more strongly felt, the Andean valleys 
enjoy a richer vegetation of high forests, grassland, and 
tall jungles. The branch of the Andes which strikes oft' 
to the east through northern Venezuela is generally 
much drier in point of climate ; and here lighter tropical 
forests alternate frequently with barren cactus scrubs and 
grassy savanas. Much of the forests of those Venezuelan 
Cordilleras has been destroyed and replaced by dreary 
scrub slopes. The northern sides of the coast ridges are 
still partly covered with stately trees, due to the 
moisture of the trade winds, the influence of which, 
however, grows weaker as range succeeds range towards 
the interior. The troughs of the valleys are lined with 
savanas and occasional savana-woods. The ancient 
native populations of these tropical mountain-lands 
were, as in southern Mexico and the West Indies, mostly 
devoted to agriculture. Among those which had attained 
a fair measure of culture before the invasions of Euro- 
peans may be mentioned the Pipil-Quichue of the Gua- 
temalan valleys and the Muysca or Chibcha of the 
Colombian plateaus, skilled also in arts arid crafts, 
though their civilizations have now been wiped out. 

Orinoco Llanos. Between the Venezuelan Cordilleras 
and the Guiana highlands lies an open lowland which 
extends from the mouth of the Orinoco to the Cassiquiare 
and the upper Apure. To the north of the Orinoco 
there is a low mesa which passes southwards to a level 

K 2 



132 SOUTH AMERICA 

plain, studded in places with granite hills and hillocks, 
crossed by broad rivers, bestrewn with swamps, and 
periodically flooded. The climate is uniformly hot and 
sweltering, with a dry and a wet season, and a fair 
atmospheric humidity. Dew is abundant; rain, the 
yearly average of which remains under sixty inches, 
is not entirely lacking at any time of the year, but is 
irregular, and severe droughts are not unknown. The 
vegetation is that of a vast savana chequered by the 
fringes of river-forests. Tall tufts of grasses, paspulum 
and panicum, mingled with tuberous and perennial herbs 
and evergreen shrubs form the bulk of it, though 
columnar palms are interspersed in places, and isolated 
clumps of short, gnarled trees become conspicuous land- 
marks. On the llanos innumerable herds of wild cattle, 
deer, antelopes, &c., are swarming. Marshes, overgrown 
with tall sedges, and conspicuous in the distance thanks 
to the groves of mauritia palms which fringe them, are 
frequent, and provide good pastures in times of drought. 
The granite hills which stand above the plain are clad 
with tropical forests. 

The mesas, the southern foot of which is followed by 
the Orinoco in its lower and middle course, are of a more 
rolling character and more park-like in aspect. The 
depressions are generally occupied by light woods, and 
the type of country closely resembles the Guiana savanas 
or llanos, south of the Guiana Highlands. The Orinoco 
llanos are admirably adapted for grazing purposes, but 
entirely undeveloped. Why, considering the compara- 
tively high atmospheric humidity and the fair amount 
of rainfall, the country should not be covered by some- 
light kind of woodland is not satisfactorily explained 
yet, though perhaps the practice of grass-burning and 
the heavy grazing may partly account for it 



GUIANA HIGHLANDS 133 

Guiana Highlands. These constitute a northern out- 
lier of the Brazilian highlands, of which they reproduce 
the main features : successions of broad terraces broken 
by sunk valleys and rising in steps, with remnants of 
mesas forming ridges or plateaus. Some of the mesas 
reach elevations of from (5,000 to 11,000 feet. 

The Guiana tableland is isolated arid open both to 
Atlantic and equatorial winds; it has therefore more 
rain and is cooler than the surrounding plains. The 
northern and eastern lower terraces are clad with 
dense rain-forests, while the valleys share the savana 
character of the lowlands, of which they are the con- 
tinuation. On the slopes, half-way up, rise open woods 
of evergreen trees with a hard, leathery foliage, recalling 
our ilexes and laurels. To these, with increasing eleva- 
tion and rainfall, denser forests of a warm temperate 
type succeed, to give way in turn, farther up, to an open 
park landscape of fresh green swards and clumps of 
low, stunted trees. The higher tables are treeless steppes. 
In respect of structure and vegetation, the Guiana table- 
lands recall the Uganda plateau, with the advantage of 
a more abundant rainfall. 

A belt of rolling savanas fringes the tableland on 
the south and west, and separates it from the Amazon 
selva. The aspect of those ' campos ' differs somewhat 
from that of the Orinoco llanos. They are rolling wolds, 
treeless, and covered with large tufts of tall grass, 
panicum and paspalum, which are sometimes broad- 
leaved and four to six feet high. These grasses become 
shorter on the back of the ridges, and are abundantly 
interspersed with bulbous and tuberous plants, and 
thorny bushes. The troughs, dales, and hollows, often 
marshy or damp, form islands or belts of thin low woods, 
where palms are a conspicuous feature, the round patches 



134 SOUTH AMERICA 

in the hollows being locally called ' capoes '. The trees 
are mostly bushy and deciduous, often, however, with 
hard much divided leaves, or thorns and prickles, rhopala 
and sivartzia being the best known. 

Though the rainfall appears to be low in the Guiana 
savanas, night-dew is always abundant, accounting for 




Fia. 44. Tangle of Mnngrove roots at low tide, 
British Guiana. 

the grassy character of this belt, which passes, almost on 
all sides, into the tropical selvas. Such campos are but 
sparsely peopled, and hardly tilled except for local crops 
of maize, cacao, sugar-cane, and manioc. 

To the south, the undulations gradually disappear, 
and the park landscape becomes more and more crowded 
till the tall and gloomy Amazon selva is reached. 



GUIANA LOWLANDS 135 

Guiana Lowlands. The Atlantic slopes of the Guianas 
and their foot-hills are under the influence of the equa- 
torial rainfall and enjoy a double wet season, while there 
is never complete drought. For this reason they are 
densely clad with heavy forests, only interrupted by 
occasional clearings of savanas on the watersheds of their 
short streams. The low coast-belt with its shallow 
coastal shelf is one of lagoons and luxuriant mangrove 
swamps, teeming with animal life, extremely unhealthy, 
girt in by brakes of tall reeds, sedges and grass, or over- 
hung with low, swampy forests and jungles. This belt 
may extend ten or twenty miles inland, and is succeeded 
by the tall rain-forest, itself a northern spur of the 
Amazon selva, from which it does not differ in any 
material point. Cocoa, rubber, palms, spices, and sugar- 
cane are the chief products of the Guiana lowlands. 
The Demerara district is an important sugar centre, 
while the rubber and the gum (balata) of the Guianas 
are valuable. 

The Amazon Basin. This most extensive of alluvial 
plains is famous for its wealth of equatorial rain-forests, 
of which it offers the most perfect type. Its flat surface 
is hardly varied by the scattered undulations or low 
hills, while the land is regularly flooded by the mighty 
river, sometimes for twenty miles or more on both sides, 
and is thus transformed into an inland sea. Of the 
climate little need be said : an equable high temperature 
throughout the year and day about 80 F., a regular 
and plentiful rainfall, with two seasons of heaviest pre- 
cipitation, give the very conditions for a maximum and 
uninterrupted growth; but it may be added that the 
mighty network of the trunk river and its innumerable 
tributaries is more efficient for irrigation than for 
drainage. There is no combination of physical conditions 



136 SOUTH AMERICA 

in the whole world more favourable to vegetation than 
that which the Amazon plain provides, and we may 
regard its luxuriance as the supreme effort of plant-life 
at this period of the world's development. This is 
expressed in the indescribable wealth of tree growth, 
in the forest par excellence, called by Humboldt 'hylea', 
and by the Portuguese the ' selva '. 

The vegetation, monotonous though it appears to the 
traveller, has been divided into a number of charac- 
teristic formations or associations. 

Flood Forests. The banks oi ? the streams, periodically 
flooded and having an excess of water, are characterized 
by a peculiar type of forest called the * igapii ' or 
4 caa-gapu' (the rebalsa of the Spaniards), extending 
as a broad fringe bordering on the rivers. It finds 
an exact replica in the flood-forests of the lowlands 
of the Mekong (Siam) and in the sundarbans of the 
mouth of the Ganges. From the slimy, hardly solid 
mud has sprung a rank and dense growth of tall 
trees overgrown with a continuous drapery of lianas, 
thus forming an unbroken dark canopy, a green wall 
impenetrable from outside. It forms a gloomy, stifling, 
musty, shady, damp vault, supported by innumerable 
pillars, and choked with a perfect tangle of climbers 
inside. The plants, simply gorged with water, but 
feebly rooted in the mud, support each other, tied 
together by the lianas. This igapu is remarkable for its 
wealth in palms and its poverty in flowers, and is 
particularly well developed on the innumerable sluggish 
side canals or 'igarapis' that intersect it. When the 
rivers are in spate its canopy simply rests on the water. 
It is the home of the Pard rubber-tree (Hevea brazi- 
liensis or seringeira), the tapping of which gives em- 
ployment to a roaming, half-wild, and scattered population 



FLOOD FORESTS 



137 



of Meztisos. The igapii differs in character according as 
it borders on so-called white or black rivers, and is 
sometimes replaced by miriti-palm forests (mauritia). 




FIG. 45. Swamp forest with roots of trees sticking out above flood level. 

Caa-guazn. Beyond the limits of the flood-forests, 
the typical selva or ete or * caa-guazu ' extends on firmer 
ground. It is taller than the former, and the trees reach 
a larger size and have a more solid structure. It is also 



138 SOUTH AMERICA 

more flowery, poorer in palms, but richer in tree lianas 
and broad-leaf epiphytes ; the foliage of the tall trees 
is smaller and harder. The best-known constituent is 
the para- (Brazil) nut tree (bertholletia or castanha), 
and where it becomes abundant, the forest takes the 
name of ' castanhal '. Here again cacao-trees grow wild 
in the undergrowth. The tall primaeval forest is often 
burned down to allow of temporary plantations of sugar- 
cane, maize, or mandioca, and in its place soon rises 
a dense, ungainly brush, made of all the undergrowth 
plants and shrubs. Until the forest proper has been 
restored this brush is called the ' caapu<?ra * or ' capoeira '. 
The caa-guazu is as yet little known, thanks to its 
forbidding nature. It is to all appearances but sparsely 
inhabited, most of the settlements being along the rivers, 
for waterways are the sole means of communication. 
Only wild tribes of Indians wander amid the fastnesses 
of the overwhelming forest, at perpetual war with the 
intruder, and living a lazy, primitive life, much like that 
of the dwarfs of the African selva. On the west, the 
selva merges into the ' montana ' hill-forests of the Andes. 

On the low and slowly rising watersheds between the 
large tributaries, the backwoods of the Great Forest are 
thinner, lighter, and lower, a condition approaching that 
of the backwoods of Central Africa. This appears to 
be the case also with the unexplored low tablelands ex- 
tending from the Madeira to the Tocantins, where large 
campos or parklands are believed to stretch between 
the wooded valleys. 

Thus vegetation seems to be arranged in broad belts 
from the rivers: the igapii,the caa-guazu, the lighter forest 
or woodland, and the campo. In the forest, the collec- 
tion of rubber and castanha occupies several thousands 
of natives. 



BRAZILIAN COAST FOIiEST BELT 139 

Brazilian Coast Forest Belt. The Brazilian high- 
lands, rising gradually towards their eastern margin, 
have their edge much indented by short, deep valleys : 
this ragged edge is known as the coastal range or 




FIG. 46. Forest cutting Eastern Brazil. 

Sierra do Mar, arid in places a second and inner line of 
bluffs appears, making a double range. The coastal 
shelf, which extends between the sea and the slopes, 
varies greatly in breadth, and sometimes disappears 
completely. 



140 SOUTH AMERICA 

The broken ledges and bluffs of the tableland lie 
fully open to Atlantic winds, of a monsoon type in the 
north, but trade winds in the south. The proximity of 
the sea, the modifying influence of the moisture, which 
is fairly regular throughout the year, give the coast 
sierra a hot and equable climate with an abundance 
and constancy of rainfall. Hence the forest which 
clothes its seaward slopes and the coastal strip extends 
almost uninterruptedly from Pernambuco to Porto Alegre. 
It preserves a tropical luxuriance far to the south of the 
Tropics, and passes slowly to an impoverished type to- 
wards its southern limit. It bears in the main the 
stamp of the Amazon flora, but is somewhat reduced, 
both in size and variety. Palms play a prominent part 
in its composition, but lianas and epiphytes are less 
varied and less strongly developed. The transition from 
the purely equatorial to the attenuated tropical type is 
so very gradual that no line can be drawn anywhere. 
The coastal forest-belt of Brazil finds an equivalent in 
many respects on the eastern edge of the African table- 
land in a similar situation, but the African coastal forest- 
belt is poorer, drier, arid more broken : an exact replica 
will be found in East Madagascar. The lower zone 
of the hill-barrier, the richest in luxuriant palms, is 
known for its Brazil- and jacaranda-woods ; the tem- 
perate zone is marked by tree-ferns, alsophila and others. 
Through the breaches in the edge of the plateau the 
forest is sometimes carried far inland and mixes with 
the flora of the campo ; south of the Tropics the upper 
belt contains araucarias. A portion of the coastal 
forest-belt is now being used for tropical agriculture, ' 
but the encroachments are so far limited, and the forest 
still largely preserves its character of * matto virgem ' 
or virgin forest (igapu). 



EAST-BRAZILIAN HIGHLANDS 141 

East- Brazilian Highlands. The Amazon luxuriance 
of plant life gradually diminishes over the coastal 
lowlands, to die out towards Maranhao. To the east of 
this, and down to Uruguay, stretches a vast and dry 
tableland, covered with a more varied vegetation, which 
may be divided into a northern part as far as the Tropic 
of Capricorn and a subtropical part farther south. 

Northern Portion. The vast tableland is very much 
broken by swift rivers running in deep valleys well 
below the general level. It is carved into a distinctly 
hilly landscape in the north-east, while it assumes a 
smoother and more rolling surface to the south-west. 
The climate is of a dry and hot description, with a 
well-marked rainy season lasting from three to five 
months. The variations of temperature, both seasonal 
and daily, are great, ranging from 60 to 100 F., and 
increasing still farther inland. The rainfall varies from 
20 to 60 inches, and shows great yearly irregularities. 

In consequence, the character of the vegetation is 
alike drier, poorer, and more varied than in the Amazon 
basin. It ranges from the half-desert through the 
savana to the light type of tropical forest. Chief 
among the features of the hilly north-eastern corner of 
Brazil, which may be called the ' sertao ' or half-desert, 
come the dreary white woods or ' caatingas '. These are 
bare and tangled jungles of low thorny tree-bushes, 
interspersed with umbrella- shaped spoiidias and zizy- 
phus, with swollen, water- storing bombax, and prickly 
candelabra cerei, opuntias, and cacti, covered in places 
with epiphytic bromelias, tillandsias, and orchids. The 
woods are green and flpwery for four to five months, but 
look as if dead for the remainder of the year. The 
lower bush, on rocky wastes, is even drearier and 
thinner, with gnarled and stunted prickly acacias, 



142 SOUTH AMERICA 

cerei, and rigid agaves and bromelia plants, pre- 
dominating: this is the 'carrasco'. 

The sertao proper, thinly bestrewn with prickly Lushes 
and aloe-like plants, is the next and most barren term 
of those forbidding vegetations; where all grades of tran- 
sition-forms abound, though grass-lands, which pre- 
dominate farther west and south, are here scarce and 
of a limited extent. Diverse palms mark these aspects 
of the landscape: attalea characterizes the caatinga: 
the waxy carniiuba palm forms oases round shallow 
marshes, and gives its name to the province of Ceara: 
buriti palms form stately groves in some places, and 
cocos coronata again distinguishes the southern sertoes, 
Both carrascos and caatingas are difficult to bring under 
cultivation, and the country is thinly peopled. 

Towards the south and west, in Goyaz and Matto 
Grosso, the sertao passes slowly into regular campos or 
grass-lands. The campos here recall the typical rolling 
savanas : tall, dull green, hairy grass-tufts, showing 
between them the red or white soil, with various shrubs, 
dwarf -palms, and liliaceous plants, form the background 
of the landscape. The treeless savana is called ' campo 
vero'; but liliaceous trees resembling yuccas may 
occur, in which case the campos are called open or 
' abertos ' : if the savanas are strewn with clumps of 
low trees, they are ' serrados '. The trees are short and 
stunted, with a divided foliage, sometimes deciduous, 
sometimes with small leathery leaves. The campos in 
the hollows present frequently circular islands of ever- 
green trees called 'capoes', or regular, leaf -shedding, 
light woods, taller and denser, 4 to 7 metres high, with 
an undergrowth of cerei, acacias, and prickly carpet- 
forming bromelias. The course of the rivers is marked 
by high and thick hedges of river woods, some of which 



NORTHERN PORTION 143 

recall the luxuriant selvas. A conspicuous feature of 
the landscape is formed by the 'chapadas' or flat, 
elevated, grassy tablelands, which may either be dotted 
with trees, or constitute a regular parkscape of grass 
and woods. 

Cattle and horse breeding, with the cultivation of 
maize, mandioca, and beans, and other tropical produce 
for home consumption, are the main occupations of the 
sparse and widely scattered population. 

Southern Brazil Highlands. In the upper basin of 
the Rio San Francisco, and farther south, the tableland 
rises by steps to altitudes of 3,000 and 4,000 feet, with 
occasional higher ridges, thrown into mountains on the 
eastern margin. These upper highlands have a more 
extreme climate than those just described. While the 
maxima of temperature keep very much to what they 
were in the equatorial parts, the minima descend very 
low indeed. Snow and frost are not unknown; and 
the seasonal and daily alternations of heat and cold are 
strongly marked. The rainfall is somewhat higher than 
in the northern region of the highlands, and varies from 
50 to 60 inches. Rain occurs chiefly in summer, while 
the winter may be very dry. 

Under such conditions, the tropical savana and the 
dry bush aspect of the northern region give way to a 
more temperate type of vegetation. Already in Minas 
Geraes, the savana differs strongly from the sertao 
aspect. Here the grass is short. The campos resemble 
treeless steppes, or they are interrupted by carrascos, 
bushy tracts, expanses of perennial herbs, and groves of 
coconut-palms. The slopes of the valleys may be strewn 
with a low brush, while the troughs shelter subtropical 
forests. 

The most conspicuous feature, however, is the appear- 



144 SOUTH AMERICA 

ance of the araucaria near the source of the San 
Francisco. The umbrella-shaped araucaria brasiliensis, 
which appears at high altitudes in the coastal ranges, 
gradually extends inland south-westward, to become 
a feature of the plateau and form light forests much 
interrupted by campos. These forests display either 




FIG. 47. Araucaria inibricata (Chile pine). 

a sward of short grass, or a thick undergrowth of 
evergreen shrubs, chief among which comes the yerba 
mate or Paraguayan tea. The araucaria descends to 
lower altitudes as the latitude increases. 

In the southern states of Brazil, the country west of 
the coast-range slopes inland by a succession of broad 



SOUTHERN BRAZIL HIGHLANDS 145 

terraces, the upper ones of which, nearer the sierra, are 
treeless grass-lands, whereas the lower inland terraces 
are clad with stately forests of araucaria and yerba 
mat to the brink of the highlands. To this region 
also belongs the hilly territory of Misiones, a spur of 
the wooded highlands protruding into the grassy carnpos 
of the lower Paran&. 

On the higher ridges, the climate is cold enough to 
favour a truly alpine vegetation : short close swards, 
dwarf bushes, and cushion-plants. Owing to the rise 
of the highlands and consequently the more temperate 
climate, the dry tropical vegetation of the northern 
highlands has now changed to a decidedly subtropical, 
indeed temperate type. These conditions have en- 
couraged the settlement of numerous European colonies, 
the chief occupation being cattle-raising and mining; 
cultivation, however, is not wanting. Sao Paulo is well 
known for its coffee, while everywhere manioc is grown 
for home consumption, and there is a promising field 
also for the fruit industry. Wheat has been grown on 
the higher levels. 

The savana becomes almost exclusively predominant 
on the watershed plateau between the Amazon and the 
Parana basins. 

Matto Grosso and Weat Goyar. In this region, the 
plateau, on the low divide of the Amazon and Parana 
basins, assumes a more strictly table-like appearance : 
broad valleys are sunk deep below the flat level of the 
land. There is more rain, due perhaps to some monsoon 
influence from the Amazon. The country has been little 
explored, but it seems to continue southward the campos 
of the backwoods of the Amazon, and may be conceived, 
as far as known, as a typical tropical savana of the 
'chapada* description. The deep valleys with their 

1159.1 L 



146 



SOUTH AMERICA 



steep slopes are clad with luxuriant selvas of the 
Amazon type. This configuration appears to be con- 
tinued south-west to the edge of the plateau, beyond 
which, in lower Matto Grosso, the plain assumes a rolling 




FIG. 48. Brazilian Savana, Matto Grosso. 

character, without materially changing the nature of its- 
grass carpet. 

The country is scarcely inhabited but for warlike 
Indians, and for obvious reasons most of the human 



BOLIVIAN LLANOS 147 

settlements are located along the rivers: there is 
ground for thinking that it will become a rich pastoral 
region. 

Bolivian Llanos. The region comprised between 
the upper Madeira and the Chaco, the Guapore and 
the Montana of the Andes, is almost unknown. It 
consists, probably, of extensive llanos intersected by 
broad rivers and. vast marshes, with a predominance of 
grassy savanas resembling the llanos of the Orinoco, 
though reedy swamps, groves of palms, and clumps of 
forest are common. In the province of Santa Cruz, 
the occurrence of hill ranges has induced the growth 
of dense forests of a thoroughly tropical nature. The 
few data so far collected about these savanas authorize 
the belief that here lies a country rich alike in possibili- 
ties for stock-raising and agriculture, and able in a 
distant future to support a dense population. The 
grass-lands are continued along the foot of the Amazon 
plateau, and join over the upper Paraguay River with 
Matto Grosso and Goyaz. 

Chaco. The broad strip of country which extends from 
the swamps of the Paraguay River to the Andes consists 
of flat or, in places, hardly undulating land, beyond the 
limits of the floods of the Paraguay. Its climate is dry 
and hot, but the uncertain drainage retains in the soil 
in many parts a fair amount of water, and gives rise to 
marshes. The nature and quantity of the water in the soil 
seems here to control entirely the distribution and 
character of the vegetation. On the flat portions, just 
beyond the limits of floods, extend vast tracts of thorn 
woodlands, the quebracho tree being the predominant 
feature, with its gnarled, twisted form, and extremely 
light crown of small, hard, finely divided leaves. The 
undergrowth is a dense and tall brush of evergreen 

L 2 



148 SOUTH AMERICA 

hard-leaved shrubs, while grassy glades occupy the 
intervening lower and moister ground. The almost 
imperceptibly swelling surface is thus distributed be- 
tween the meadow-like, somewhat marshy shallows and 
the dry quebracho woods, which then appear like 
islands or ' islas ' on the flats. Thin forests of waxy 
palms grace the grass-lands and belt the forest : the 
swamps which are strewn over the surface disappear 
under tall wavy reeds and sedges. The northern Chaco 
is said to contain patches of moist tropical forests, and 
gradually merges into the Bolivian llanos. The great 
park plain is interrupted by the vast and impassable 
swamps of the Pilcomayo and the Bermejo. 

As the land rises towards the Andes very gently, and 
with increasingly dry climate and soil, the quebracho 
forest gradually thins out, becoming lower and sometimes 
passing into a thorny scrub-land of various small-leaf, 
prickly bushes, such as prosopis, acacia, mimosa, cassia, 
chaiiar, &c. Even this thins out in places, and leaves 
desolate stony wastes dotted with single scraggy shrubs 
of acacia, atriplex, and scattered cereus and cactus. 

In Tucuman and farther north along the Andes, the 
upper plains are more fertile, owing perhaps to increasing 
altitude and, consequently, to a somewhat more liberal 
rainfall. Dry forests of quebracho reappear with in- 
creased vigour, and other forests are known here which 
are almost entirely composed of cebil acacias, alternating 
with a dry kind of narrow-leaf grass-land, and making 
the park landscape known as ' parque.' This links 
the plains with the luxuriant forests of the sierra. 
Quebracho forests are now being developed for their 
hard timber and bark, whilst the grass-lands are used 
for grazing. 

Horse and cattle breeding have so far been fittingly 



CHACO 149 

the main occupations of the region, but the existence 
of the dry woodlands is an indication of further possi- 
bilities in the west. Orchards of subtropical and medi- 
terranean fruit-trees may take the place of the forests, 
and indeed have already done so to a certain extent. 
Orange orchards, amongst others, find here very favour- 
able conditions, and a kind of mediterranean agri- 
culture is followed. Sugar-cane is extensively grown 
in Tucuman. 

Alto Parana-Paraguay. The land which is limited 
by the lower course of the Rio Paraguay and of the Alto 
Parana differs alike from the Brazilian highlands and the 
Cliaco, from the campos of Matto Grosso and the campos 
and swamps of Corrientes : it constitutes a natural region. 

Covering the southern lower terraces of the plateau 
of Matto Grosso, and sinking abruptly along a bluff 
down to the alluvial plain of the Paraguay Kiver, it is 
on the whole gently undulating and seldom rises above 
1.000 feet in elevation. 

The climate is equable, though hot in summer. The 
rainfall, fairly well distributed throughout the year, 
ranges from 50 inches on the banks of the Paraguay to 
80 inches on the Alto Parana: dew is very abundant 
at night, and the seasonal rhythm is well marked. This 
is typically a moist subtropical region. 

It is correspondingly covered with luxuriant forests 
in its eastern moister half, and in that respect may be 
compared with the middle belt of the eastern Andes 
or, farther afield, with the lower belt of the Chinese 
Alps. Lianas, epiphytes, and palms of great variety 
and large size show above a particularly dense and 
tall undergrowth. Many of the tall trees of the canopy 
shed their foliage for a short time in winter, whilst the 
undergrowth, almost a forest in itself, is thoroughly 



150 SOUTH AMERICA 

evergreen. Tree ferns are always present in the gullies. 
On the more porous soils the forest is reduced to a tall 
and crowded deciduous jungle, among which is found 
the yerba-matd, somewhat resembling a broad-leaved 
laurel. 

With the decrease of precipitation towards the west, 
the forest, without changing its density and character, 




FIG. 49. Paraguayan Forest near Guayra Falls. 

remains limited to the rises and undulations. Tall 
grassy campos, sometimes studded with palms or 
scattered thickets, intermingle more and more with it, 
finally predominating on the lower alluvial levels which 
gradually lead to the marginal swamps of the river Para- 
guay. Each of the numerous rivers throws up at flood 
time a double high bank clad with a varied and thick 



ALTO PARANA-PARAGUAY 151 

jungle. These forests yield a largo number of most 
valuable kinds of timber, while the yerbal jungles 
provide employment for thousands of men engaged in 
the collection of the Paraguayan tea. No country is 
better suited to rich subtropical crops than the Parana 
portion of this region : the western pastures are excellent, 
and the sparse population is now half agricultural and 
half pastoral. The Conquistador es found there a great 



FIG. 50. Campos in North Paraguay. 

number of tribes, some of whom lived entirely on the 
natural products of the forest and river, though others 
were skilled in agricultural pursuits. 

Paraguay and Lower Parana Marshes. The Para- 
guay River and its powerful tributaries, the Pilcornayo 
and Bermejo, run through vast level plains, studded 
with a few conical knolls, and invaded yearly by floods 
bringing deposits from the Andes and the campos of 
Matto G rosso. So flat is the basin that rivers frequently 



152 SOUTH AMERICA 

shift their courses and intersect the country with disused 
channels and v r ast swamps, throwing up levees on their 




Fio. 51. Subtropical Rain Forest, Paraguay. 

way and damming up whole territories. Though the 
climate is dry and warm, with the exception of a rainy 



PARAGUAY AND LOWER PARANA MARSHES 153 

season, the riparian region is turned into a huge swamp 
similar to those of Central Africa, on the -Nile or the 
Zambesi. The same type of landscape holds farther 
south, and is strongly marked on the lower Parana ; 
thus a broad strip of land extending along the upper 
course of the Paraguay down to the Apa River, con- 
tinued in the Chaco west of the Paraguay and expanding 




FIG. 52. Palm Grove in Corrientos, 
Argentina, 

into Corrientcs and Santa Fe down to La Plata, may be 
detached as a separate region. It consists of vast level, 
grassy seas or pampas, and equally vast swamps. 

The swamps may be shallow, * banados ' or deep, ' male- 
zales ', sometimes deepening into actual lakes : they are 
overgrown with tall reeds, sedges, and broad-leaf grasses, 
often six feet high. Along the uncertain shores of the 



154 SOUTH AMERICA 

lakes, the reed vegetation is constantly encroaching, 
building floating islands of intertwined reeds, natural 
rafts called sudd, which sometimes support trees and are 
torn and carried away in times of flood. Such sudds, 
floating down lakes and rivers, are a common sight. 
Some of the rivers, even the Pilcomayo, lose themselves 
in impassable swamps, where the firm ground and the 
loose muddy floating islands are hard to distinguish. 
When the ground dries up, the reeds shrivel and dis- 
appear. A short grass, followed at first by a carpet 
of low, and later on by a crop of tall, herbs and bushes, 
springs up, affording succulent grazing grounds for horses 
and cattle, but sadly infested by myriads of mosquitoes 
and other pests. 

The river banks disappear under hedges of tall canes, 
wavy reeds, and bambus, so that dikes and sand-banks 
thrown up by the waters are, in many cases, the only 
dry roads. These are soon clothed with a luxuriant 
covering of herbs, thanks to the seeds carried by the 
streams and scattered in the mud and sand. Bushes 
arid trees strike and grow quickly and deck the levees 
with impassable low jungles, recalling our osier beds. 
The islands thus enclosed by the dikes become wet 
meadows or grass moors strewn with * banados '. They 
may be locally dotted with thin copses of bushy acacias, 
or give rise to palm forests. 

Such is the power of those changeful and unsettled 
rivers that the surface of the country is in constant 
process of transformation by the periodical flooding of 
the pampas or the draining of marshes, but the banks 
along the streams may be firmly held together by the. 
vegetation and even become permanently wooded. Ad- 
vantage is taken of this by man for his settlements. 
roads, and railways: thus it happens that frequently 



PARAGUAY AND LOWER PARANA MARSHES 155 

the banks of streams only are inhabited, while the 
hinterland is impassable. The islands of really firm 
ground, above the level of the floods, and yet irrigated 
by them, may also become centres of forest growth. 
Tropical in the north, the forest belts and islands 
assume a decidedly subtropical, and even temperate, 
character in the south. As might be expected, the chief 
industry of the region is cattle and horse breeding. 

Western Argentine Wastes. West of the latitude of 
San Luis, the landscape, though retaining the name of 
pampa, slowly changes for the worse. The rainfall is 
well below 20 inches yearly, and there is a prolonged 
dry period ; the variations of temperature are therefore 
very wide. The ground also becomes somewhat rougher 
and more varied. Immense levels and hollow tracts of 
marshy or salt deserts the ' travesias ' are broken by 
sandy dunes the ' medanos ' some of which are shifting. 
An outlier of the Andes, the Sierra de Cordoba, is thrown 
athwart the track to the Cordilleras, and more or less 
encloses the desolate land on the east. Isolated hills or 
hillocks here and there break the rolling or level surface. 

The vast plains at the foot of the Andes, under these 
latitudes, gradually pass from the grassy pampa into 
a vast dreary thorn shrubland. The grass grows sparser 
and sparser westward, where low compact bushes, 
with small, hard, divided leaves and formidable spines, 
are spread like cushions here and there on the naked 
ground. They belong to the typical bush of West 
Argentina, the chanar, somewhat like an acacia, 
which is everywhere conspicuous. Shrubs of hard-leaf, 
prickly verbena and of retama, tufts of dwarf prickly 
palms, stand solitary, whilst more forbidding leafless 
cacti, cerei, and opuntias stretch the ungainly shapes of 
their bristling limbs. 



156 



SOUTH AMERICA 



There are oases along the margins of the rivers, fed 
by fresh water, which afford only limited fields for 
a mediterranean agriculture. 

From these bush lands one rides into the 'esteros' or 
' salitrales', i. e. vast salt-wastes, where the bare ground 
is shrouded in a white sheet of salt powder, or may be 
Hooded for miles round in times of rain. Dotted here 
and there are shrubs, high or low, with small, ileshy, 




FIG. 53. CliaTiar and dry cereus scrub, 
\V. Argentina. 

grey leaves in tufts, growing sparser and lower with an 
increasing proportion of salt, till the soil remains naked 
but for a few distant, crawling dwarf -bunches. Plants 
of these parts somewhat resemble those of our own salt-' 
marshes, and have a similar aspect the world over: 
such are the 'junin' wastes. 

At the limits of the salitrales, the land rises into 



WESTERN ARGENTINE WASTES 157 

barren dunes or medanos, some of them shifting; and 
studded with tall tufts of dry, small-leaf Compositae, such 
as baccharis. They grow out of little mounds, between 
which the sand has been washed or blown away. Mis- 
shapen opuntias and cerei are strewn here and there 
among besoms of stiff* grasses. The rivers, many of 
them salt, are fringed with pampas-grass, which appears 
also on the rare brackish or fresh-water marshes or 
' pantanos ' and in the hollows. 

The little rocky sierras and isolated hills, like the 
sierra of Cordoba, are not, strictly speaking, redeeming 
features, for their stony slopes are moatly barren, and 
vegetation is scarce. Occasional low trees become 
conspicuous landmarks amid a dry scrub of schinus, 
larrea, and other bushes, recalling the chaparral of 
California. Even the scrub frequently thins out and 
scatters, leaving nothing but a jumble of rocks. 

The Pampa. * On every side a sea of grass, grass and 
more grass : paja y cielo (grass and sky), as the natives 
of the country style their favourite landscape. Nothing 
to break the brown eternity of the pampa but here and 
there a green ombii, shaped like an umbrella, or an 
occasional straggling line of pampas-grass, which breaks 
the edges of some water-course, and by comparison 
seems as tall as does a poplar in the plains of 
Lombardy.' 

This describes the true pampa, extending from the 
Atlantic, half-way over the continent, to the longitude 
of San Luis, and from the lower Uruguay south to 
Rio Colorado. The name pampa has, however, been 
extended to other treeless, flat tracts surrounding the 
' pampa vera '. 

The pampa is entirely level, or slowly and gently 
undulating, sometimes swollen into low mounds; the- 



158 SOUTH AMERICA 

hollows, mostly shallow and devoid of outlet, collect 
the waters, and dot the surface of the boundless plain 
with innumerable marshes, brackish or salt, or merely 
damp troughs ; the soil is a stoneless, fine sand, or sandy 
and powdery loess ; the rivers are often saline, and 
thanks to the alternations of droughts and heavy down- 
pours, the soil is caked hard and rendered impervious. 
Winters are short and comparatively mild, though 
distinctly felt ; daily ranges of temperature are stronger 
than in the north, and nightly dew is abundant. 

The carpet is made of separate dense tufts of stiff 
grasses, not in a close mat, but showing the ground in 
the intervals. According to the nature of the numerous 
grasses melica, stipa, aristida, andropogon, pappo- 
phorum, panicum, paspalum, and others the aspect 
varies slightly. Herbs, mostly evergreen perennials 
with small leathery leaves, are interspersed among the 
grasses ; bulbs are not as abundant as might be expected, 
and annuals are few. Trees are excluded but for occasional 
and solitary dmbiis (phytolacca) which grow near the 
houses. Rivers flow either between sandy banks or tall 
hedges of gynerium, pampas-grass and reeds, forming 
what is called 'pajonales'. In the slightly undulating 
pampa, the moister hollows or shallow canadas are lined 
with a softer turf, and denser swards mixed with 
various low, succulent plants and flowers. 

The changeful albeit monotonous aspect of the pampa 
has been thus described : ' Coal black in spring when 
the old grass has been burned ; bright bluish-green when 
the young leaves sprout ; later on brownish-green, the 
colour of the mature grass; finally at the flowering 
time when the silvery white spikes overtop the grass, 
over wide tracts it seems like a rolling, waving sea of 
liquid silver.' 



THE PAMPA 159 

Swift animals, rheas, hares, and now horses and 
even cattle, roam over the pampa, which affords them 
a magnificent pasturage. After the wild Indians, the 
half-breed Gauchos, wonderful horsemen, took possession 
of the ground, mostly as horse-breeders. Agriculture, 
however, at first restricted to the moister and more 
fertile canadas, h&s gained a firm foothold in the east, 
and is extending westward in limitless fields of corn, 
maize, flax, and alfalfa where the wild grasses once 
stood, so that the eastern provinces especially have now 
become one of the important granaries of the world* 
competing with Australia, Russia, and North America. 

A notable fact is the invasion of the east of the 
country by European and more especially mediterranean 
weeds, which seem to push back the native herbs and 
find a congenial habitat : the invaders are mostly thistles 
and grasses. Perhaps the most striking change in the 
pampa is the sudden outburst of woodlands: the rich 
black soil has needed only ploughing and aerating to 
ensure the rapid growth of large plantations of various 
kinds of trees and of prosperous orchards of peach, 
plum, quince, and many other fruits, on what were 
twenty years ago treeless solitudes. The native Indians 
of the big plains were primarily nomad hunters, and 
knew very little of agriculture. 

Uruguay and Entre Bios. The lower course of the 
Paranfi, is bordered by wide flood territories in process 
of building up, and presenting much the same appear- 
ance as the vast swampy country to the north. The 
region between the Parand and the Uruguay, Entre 
Eios, forms a low tableland built up by deposits brought 
from inland, but already in process of erosion. On 
that account it assumes a slightly rolling appearance. 

With a warm, temperate climate, this region also 



160 SOUTH AMERICA 

receives a fair amount of rain throughout the year, with 
a marked rainy period. The landscape is essentially 
parklike grass-land, studded with groves of trees or 
small woodlands. The forest islands show a distinct 
mild-temperate type of medium-sized trees with small 
somewhat leathery leaves and dense crowns, and a thick 
undergrowth, from which the tropical wealth of woody 
lianas and the aerial gardens of broad-leaf epiphytes 
are absent. On grounds of more recent formation, still 
caked and hard, are developed thin woodlands of orchard- 
like aspect, with a grass carpet, and a dotting of low, 
thorny arid bushy acacias, fine-leaved and shadeless. 

More rolling and slowly rising in a regular swell 
towards the Brazilian uplands, Uruguay offers much the 
same natural features : Entre Rios is partly agricultural, 
while in Uruguay, the more rocky land, though not 
unsuited, in many places, to agriculture, has been trans- 
formed, on account of its natural pastures, into a vast 
cattle-ranch. With the increasing immigration of Euro- 
peans, however, the cultural resources are developing, 
maize and wheat being the staple crops. 

Patagonia semi-desert. A truly dismal picture is 
that of the Patagonian semi-desert which stretches, 
south of the Rio Colorado, from the Atlantic to the Andes : 
a rolling plain of shingle, gravel, and sand, bestrewn 
with marshy hollows, cut up by ravines and canons, 
broken occasionally by short and low ranges. The climate 
is half desert, but winter colds and frosts and icy winds 
are prominent features : rain falls only occasionally, and 
then in downpours. The result is a treeless, open, 
even scattered growth of bushes, mostly Compositae, 
plantago, verbena, &c. These shrubs, from three to nine 
feet in height, are scrubby, thorny, and woody, with 
tiny, grey, leathery leaves, all viscous or hairy. Most 



PATAGONIA SEMI-DESERT 161 

of them, half-dead bundles of crowded twigs and stems, 
look like bristling besoms ; some resemble heaths ; others 
crawl, or spread in cushions: grass plays here but an 
unimportant part. Thickets of these woody perennials 
alternate irregularly with naked tracts, and in winter 
cast their scanty foliage. Here again countless marshes, 
mostly brackish 6r salt, are formed in the hollows, or 
by the rivers losing themselves in the sand and gravel ; 
they allow of the usual salt-bush vegetation. 

Little can be done with such a land, and it lies 
mostly unused and unusable: settlements may, how- 
ever, be found along the coast, or along the few 
freshwater rivers. The intervening wastes are but 
travesias, where only wild Indians manage to eke out 
a precarious living, mostly by hunting and fishing. 

South. Patagonia. A region of steppe extends to the 
south and west of the Patagonian semi-desert, beginning 
in a strip along the Andes, and gradually widening to 
the south-east down to the Atlantic, covering the whole 
breadth of the low south Patagonian plateau and the 
north-east corner of Fuegia. 

The latitude is now high, and the narrow point of the 
austral continent plunges into the zone of raw and 
moist south-westerlies. The Andes have become at once 
lower and more interrupted, with, as a result, a play of 
oceanic winds over the land, and a cool, cloudy, some- 
what moist and windy climate, where winter is not 
extreme. The ground is the continuation of that farther 
north: a low plateau or high plain, undulating and 
broken, consisting of shingle, rubble and gravel, clay 
and sand. These conditions are not favourable to tree- 
growth ; the country may be described as a vast 
treeless moor, offering a rough, irregular surface. Tus- 
socks of the tussock-grass, poa flabellata y build huge 

1189.1 M 



162 SOUTH AMERICA 

well-packed cushions on thick root-stooks ; bog-balsam 
strews equally large and crowded bunches or mounds 
over monotonous heath moors; a number of crawling 
or low, evergreen, small- and hard-leaf bushes are inter- 
mingled with a few grasses. 

Rougher still and more broken, rainy, chilly, and 
wind-swept, is the group of the Falkland Islands, with 
a very similar vegetation, though \vith quite a number 
of plants of its own, and one or two bushes in sheltered 
valleys. Here again the winds are the main cause 
of treelessness. 

South Patagonia is suitable for sheep-farming, though 
most of the settlements are as yet confined to the coast 
and rivers. 

Puegia. The foot-hills and piedmont strip along the 
Andes, extending across the Straits of Magellan, over 
the plateaus of central Fuegia, east of the mountains, 
are more favourably situated than the steppe region 
just described, which it succeeds to the west and south. 
More sheltered, perhaps, yet receiving the benefit of the 
western rainfall through the gaps of the mountains, 
this region stands intermediate between the western 
timbered highlands and the drier eastern steppes. It 
also enjoys a milder and more equable temperature, but 
has a strongly marked winter. 

It is a park landscape, the aspect of which recalls, 
in a measure, that of our northern countries, with 
thickets, woods, and even forests of middle-sized, summer- 
green Antarctic beeches, an undergrowth of shrubs and 
ferns, and a carpet of mosses and lichens. The inter- 
vening grass-land is somewhat like our wild pastures 
and meadows. In point of climate and vegetation it is 
comparable to the northern part of our own island. 

The Andes. Ranging through 65 degrees of latitude, 



THE ANDES 163 

from the hottest to the coldest, and from the most arid 
to the dampest regions, the cordillera of the Andes 
practically summarizes the vegetation of the whole 
world ; there is scarcely a form of plant life that is 
not represented on that mightiest of mountain-ranges. 
A powerful barrier athwart the path of the winds, 
it is abundantly Watered, now on one side, now on the 
other, exhibiting nearly everywhere the opposite extremes 
on eastern and western slopes. Under the equator, and 
farther north, the benefit of the rain-belt extends in 
fairly equal measure to both sides, so that the northern 
range as far south as Guayaquil is under the influence 
of regular and sufficient precipitations and shows no 
striking contrast. Farther south, down to 30 S., the 
eastern slopes are still well watered, though the western 
side experiences extreme drought ; then for a short 
interval of about 10 degrees of latitude, under warm 
temperate conditions, both sides are about equally dry. 

In the southern domain of the westerlies, however, 
the Pacific slopes become very rnoist, while the east 
remain arid, and are not admitted to a share, limited 
though it be, in the western rains before reaching 48 
to 50 S. 

Eastern Andes. The Montana. This name may be 
applied to the vast crescent or amphitheatre of slopes 
which define the Amazon valley on the west and extend 
from Venezuela to the Argentine border, i.e. to the 
Tropics; locally it is restricted to the Peruvian and 
Bolivian portions. 

The Amazon selva rises up the slopes, almost un- 
changed, to 4,000 feet or so, under the same conditions 
of an excessive and uniform rainfall and heat. It is 
followed higher up by a zone of rain-forest, with a 
cooler, though scarcely less rainy climate, and exhibits 

M 2 



164 SOUTH AMERICA 

smaller palms and lianas, tree-ferns, and bambus, the 
features of the subtropical rain-forest all over the 
world. This is the home of the cinchona, now culti- 
vated in similar situations in tropical Asia, and of 
the wax-palms. The main body of this forest retains 
its character up to 7,500 feet, when it stops. Wax- 
palms and some hardier trees go on and up, mingling 
with deciduous trees to 9,000 or 10,000 feet. In the 
next zone, the woodlands display low trees of 'rose 
of the Andes ', bejaria, and numerous tall shrubs of escal- 
Ionia, drimys, buddleia (whose vegetation recalls that 
of the larger kinds of rhododendrons), and an isolated 
conifer, podocarpus. This woodland zone reaches up to 
10,500 or 11,000 feet. The upper belt includes the 
paramos and higher slopes, treeless and reduced to a brush 
of bushes and grass, with carpets of dry, woolly alpine 
plants. 

Argentine subtropical Andes. From 20 to 25 S., 
the eastern Andes establish a transition to the drier 
conditions prevailing farther south. A cross-section of 
these slopes offers a lower or basal strip of forests suc- 
ceeding to the park landscape already mentioned, with 
its dry and interrupted woodlands which begin at few 
miles from the sierra. As might be expected, the lower 
slopes of the mountains are moister than the adjacent 
plains. Stately trees with dense crowns, including 
machoeriums, laurels, chestnuts, and broad-leaved cedars, 
and a rich undergrowth, compose these virgin subtropical 
rain-forests. They are extremely valuable for their 
timber, and the nature of the climate, highly favourable 
for all subtropical produce, would lend itself to a 
prosperous agriculture were it not for the difficulty of 
communication. 

A quite temperate zone follows above 3,000 feet, 



ARGENTINE SUBTROPICAL ANDES 165 

exhibiting forests of ihepodocarpus, along with Peruvian 
alders, elders, escallonias, &c. The mountain is no longer 
clad with an uninterrupted forest, but rather displays a 
park landscape where woodlands prefer the shelter of 
valleys, and grass and bushlands cloak the ridges. With 
increasing altitude the proportion of grass-land rises, and 
soon comes a belt of pastures with grasses three feet 
high, interspersed with clumps or isolated specimens 
of the stout and gnarled quenoa- trees, barely twenty 
feet high, which are hung with draperies of tillandsias. 
Above 12,000 feet even the quefioa ceases, and alpine 
pastures develop with the usual aspect, rich in flowers, 
until the snow-line is reached. 

Continuing along the eastern slopes of the Andes, 
there follows a truly arid strip extending far southward. 
This district, like some others, has known prosperous 
times, when nearly every valley had its lake and its area 
of cultivation, and supported a fairly large population 
with a comparatively high degree of civilization. 
Whether by natural or human causes, or the combination 
of both, this state of things ceased to be soon after the 
invasion of Europeans. 

Dry Argentine Cordillera. A cross-section of tlie.se 
slopes would show nowhere forests or even a parklike 
landscape. Succeeding to the chanar or espinal vegeta- 
tion comes first, on the lower slopes and foot-hills, a belt 
of scattered scrub or chaparral, a dreary rocky landscape 
where grass is scarce and parched. This subandine belt, 
entirely useless, is dotted with thickets of creosote and 
low acaceous bushes, but farther up, the bare ridges 
are seamed with gorges, in the shelter of which meagre 
woods and patches of the leguminous adesmia shrubs, 
lena amarilla, are conspicuous on the naked slopes. 
Still lower and more scattered bushes occur above that 



166 SOUTH AMERICA 

belt, and lead up to an alpine zone of dwarf crawling 
perennials, only scattered on shingles, but more densely 
grouped on peaty tracts. This landscape continues till 
the extreme south of Patagonia is reached, when another 
more cheerful aspect replaces it. It is a transition from 
the western timbered Andes to the dry steppes of the 
eastern plain a park landscape where the trees are 
deciduous. This dry portion of the Argentine cordillera 
is useless to man: it is condemned to remain unused and 
barren, but the south Patagonian slopes may some day 
lend themselves to pastoral industries. 

Western Andes. Of the equatorial and Colombian 
portions a brief mention has already been made (p. 131). 

Peruvian Andes. The Peruvian Andes have been 
divided into a lower belt, the ' cuesta ' or coast, and an 
upper belt, the ' sierra ', or mountain. The cuestu is 
rainless and hot, with frequent dew and mists at night, 
and except for a narrow, sandy coastal strip, it is waste, 
rocky, and hilly, and barely supports a scattered thorny 
brush of mesquites and acacias, studded with cerei, 
opuntias, and cacti, where occasional showers give rise 
to an ephemeral crop of brightly flowered herbs. The 
narrow, extremely arid coastal plain is crossed by 
numerous short, snow -fed mountain streams, the lower 
valleys of which run as parallel oases, each a small Egypt 
between the intervening wastes. Each valley possesses 
its little town, with sometimes a port at its mouth. 

Above the coast-belt rises the cordillera or sierra 
belt from 7,000 to 12,000 feet, frequently wrapped in 
clouds, and for. that reason cooler and moister, with also 
a somewhat denser covering of evergreen shrubs and 
shrubby perennials. To this zone we owe some of our 
garden plants, amongst them, varieties of calceolarias, 
lupins, clematis, echeverias, and tobaccos. It gradually 




FJG. 54. Cactus on the dry slopes of the Andes. 



168 SOUTH AMERICA 

passes to the alpine belt of sparsely dotted dry, dwarf 
plants. 

The Peruvian Andes was once the seat of a powerful 
and advanced civilization which flourished until the 
Spanish conquests of the sixteenth century ; now im- 
pressive ruins are the only traces to be found. Agriculture, 
with irrigation and manuring, was then brought to a 
point of perfection which has not been equalled since 
in that region ; but large areas which had been under 
cultivation now lie desolate, claimed by the desert. The 
prosperous cities which lined the shore, nestled in the 
valleys, or expanded on the plateaus, have fallen into 
ruins. There is no doubt that in the times of the Incas, 
Quichuas and Aymaras, before the advent of Europeans, 
the belts of vegetation and cultivation were broader on 
the Pacific slopes than they are now, which may be due 
either to better climatic conditions or to artificial irriga- 
tion, or to both. 

Atacama. About the latitude of 20 S., the rapid 
declivities of the coastal ranges give way to a succession 
of broad terraces broken by ranges and rising in steps 
towards the top plateaus of Bolivia. This region is 
practically an absolute desert the soil of which is 
impregnated and covered with alkalis, perhaps the 
barest place of the tropical world. Human habitations 
are entirely confined to the , coast, where water can be 
had by boring, and a few straggling trees and sage-bushes 
and mesqnites are occasionally met with. From terrace 
to terrace, and up the naked scarps, the desert rises to 
above 10,000 feet, only to merge into the scarcely less 
dreary inland punas. Yet it is from those very deserts 
that one of the most valuable fertilizers nitrates is 
extracted and shipped to the whole world. 

Central Chile. By Caldera, the desert proper stops, 



CENTRAL CHILE 169 

and by a gradual diminution of aridity passes to more 
prosperous landscapes. 

Situated between a coastal range and a mountainous 
background, the central valley of Chile is almost an 
exact replica of the Sacramento valley of California, and, 
like it, frankly mediterranean in character. The valley 
itself has a grassy floor with a thorny brush, mostly ever- 
green, of mimosas, colletias, &c., recalling the chaparral 
and the maquis. It is now being thrown open to the 
cultivation of mediterranean produce, thanks to irriga- 
tion. Farther inland the slopes are clothed with a taller 
woodland of hard- and small-leaf shrubs like quillaja, 
saponaria, sumac, and escallonia, which strikingly 
resemble evergreen oaks and other mediterranean ever- 
greens. Above this belt of woods the evergreen beeches, 
corresponding to ilexes, make their appearance in regular 
forests. Araucarias replace the pines of California ; 
tubers and bulbs are marked features of the vegetation. 

South Chilian Rain-forests. A little to the north of 
Vaklivia, by 36 S., begins the forest-region of Chile, 
with the predominance of the austral moist, westerly 
winds, which produce an equable, very rainy climate, 
warm temperate in the north, cool in the south. The 
whole country then becomes abundantly timbered up to 
the tree-line. The lower belt represents a true temperate 
mixed rain-forest, dark and dense, composed of several 
evergreen small- and hard-leaf beeches mingled with 
leaf-shedding trees of the same genus, a wealth of 
climbers and epiphytes, bambus and tree-ferns, and of 
smaller trees like the magnolaceous drimys Winteri and 
several other kinds, among which are conifers. Above 
5,000 feet the forest passes to the shrub- woodland of 
dwarf deciduous beeches. This belt again gives way, 
at about 6,000 feet, to a bush-land of barberry, cran- 



170 SOUTH AMERICA 

berry, escallonias, and other shrubs. The upper alpine belt 
consists of perennial herbs scattered on gravel and rocks. 

Extreme South and Fnegia. The forest region con- 
tinues uninterruptedly down to the extreme point of 
Fuegia, on the western slopes, and though retaining its 
evergreen character in spite of the high latitude, it 
becomes poorer and poorer both in size and variety. 
The same small-leaf green beeches spread to the farthest 
south with the drirnys tree, but tree-ferns, lianas, 
epiphytes, and bambus disappear, and with them the 
warm- temperate luxuriance. Now the forests are dark 
and damp, somewhat resembling our spruce forests, 
and under their heavy canopy there is only a thick litter 
of rotten wood, with a soaked carpet of mosses and 
liverworts, some ferns, and a scanty undergrowth. Like 
the preceding, the south Chilian region remains an 
important timber asset, but on account of the steep and 
broken nature of the ground cannQt be put to other uses. 

Punas. The higher plateaus that stretch between the 
Cordilleras of the Andes, with their abrupt and extreme 
alternations of heat and cold, their scanty rainfall, and 
their dry, icy winds, receive the name of * punas '. They 
are vast wastes of rocks and salt, the worst types of 
which are absolutely bare, while others are strewn with 
the * ichu ' feather-grass in dry, bristling tufts : bulbs, 
rosette- and cushion-plants, and alpine bushes are also 
characteristic. Some punas at a lower level, like that 
of Jujuy in Argentine, are treeless grass-lands of a dry, 
yet more prosperous and useful, description. 

The punas are very thinly inhabited, for vast tracts are 
wholly desert. They cannot be utilized for agriculture; 
or even for grazing purposes to any large extent, except 
in some sheltered corners. The native camel, the llama, 
alone finds a scanty food, and it is used as a pack animal. 



CHAPTER IV 

AUSTRALIA 

LYING across the tropic of Capricorn, the vast Austra- 
lian mass of land is primarily divided into an intra- 
tropical and an extra-tropical portion; but this 
distinction is mostly felt along the margins of the 
continent, and the desert centre varies little from south 
to north. On nearly all sides the margins are higher 
than the interior, and, forming barriers which lie athwart 
the paths of the winds rushing in from the surrounding 
seas, rob them of most of their moisture, leaving the 
centre almost rainless. Broadly speaking, Australia 
may be described as a desert with a fringe of vegetation ; 
but whereas in the northern half the rainfall, which is 
of the monsoon type occurs in summer, the extra-tropical 
portion depends for its water mainly on the westerly 
storms of the austral seas which, in winter, reach the 
two southern points of the continent. Only the middle 
of the east coast enjoys the benefit of the south-eastern 
trade winds. Australia does not reach latitudes high 
enough to experience any severe cold. The snows which 
occasionally cover the loftier parts of the southern high- 
lands are never of long duration. 

Northern Point of the Tableland. The northernmost 
point of the continent is little known as yet. Along 
the shores of the warm seas it enjoys a wet period of 
five months* duration and a yearly average precipitation 
of 65 inches. A few tracts of luxuriant tropical forests 
are known, but it is uncertain if they are merely of 



NORTHERN POINT OF THE TABLELAND 173 

local occurrence. The prevailing vegetation is of a 
somewhat dry type, rather of the nature of a light 
monsoon forest passing to the thornwood. Tropical 
plants like the pandanus and a number of palms of the 
Twin-Malayan region are undoubtedly present, with one 




FIG. 50. Physical leatures of Australia. 

or two large tropical species of leguminous and other 
trees ; mangroves are frequent along the coast. 

Except for a few settlements of white men dotted 
about the shore, the country is left to the primitive 
Australians; but it is destined by its climate and soil 
to enjoy a prosperous future. 

The adjacent islands are fairly well wooded. 



174 



AUSTRALIA 



Thornwood. In the rear of this first belt, from the 
south of the Gulf of Carpentaria to Victoria River on 
the west, stretches a somewhat hilly zone of very light 
tropical woods casting their foliage during the dry 
period and resembling the caatin^a of the Brazilian 
sertao or the rain -green woods of the East African 




FJG. 67. Mean Annual Rainfall of Australia, in inches. 

plateaus. Acacias play here quite a predominant part, 
with eucalypti of moderate height, melaleucas and the 
Australian tea- trees. 

Tropical Savana. The light rain-green woods of the' 
north thin out farther inland; the precipitations also 
fall below an annual 40 inches and display great fluctua- 
tions from year to year. Then comes the savana, 



176 



AUSTRALIA 



stretching in a belt from Dampierland to the north- 
eastern highlands, alike on the western plateau and in 
the central lowlands, over the large levels broken by 
short ranges of hills of the former, and over a flat or 
undulating territory farther east. 

In its general aspect, the savana is a brush of tall 
tuft-grass, dotted with groves or solitary specimens of 




CLIMATE REGIONS 

\vilh Type Stations 



FIG. 59. Seasonal distribution of Rainfall in Australia. 

low shrubby trees, mostly evergreen like eucalyptus, 
or heath-like (casuarinas), or again with thickets of 
acacias. The most important trees of this savana are 
again the melaleucas and the tea-trees. As in Africa 
and America, the bombax tree is conspicuous. This 
belt is frequently interrupted by tracts of scrub, and ia 





FIGS, CO and 61. Mean Temperature of Australia reduced to sea-level. 



HoWftFoneft 

Summer RainForeft Savana 
Winter " E3 Scrub 
m Steppe DDesert 




FIG. 62. Vegetation of Australia. 



1163-1 



178 AUSTRALIA 

Queensland, west of the mountains, it is especially claimed 
by the Brigalow-scrub, consisting of acacias. Towards 
the south, the savana passes gradually into desert 
through a belt of acacias, by the disappearance of the 
grass and the scattering of the shrubs. 

Scrubland. Between the wooded areas of the coastal 
margins and the inland desert there must, of necessity, 
extend a transition belt, where the rainfall is not 
abundant enough to support a continuous and dense 
tree-growth, while, on the other hand, the irregularity 
and distribution of the precipitation are not favourable 
enough for the development of large grass carpets. 
This belt, if we recall what occurs on other continents, 
is likely to be characterized by a scattered vegetation of 
evergreen shrubs with a scanty admixture of grass. 

Three main types of scrub have been distinguished, 
each with a specific appearance. They are all restricted 
to belts which have a yearly rainfall of under 30 inches. 
Of the three main types, two, viz. the * Brigalow ' and the 
'Mallee' scrub, appear to require at least 15 inches of 
yearly precipitation, whilst the third, the * Mulga ', in its 
poorer forms, seems to be able to stand extremely arid 
conditions, and therefore penetrates far into and among 
the true deserts. The respective relations of the three 
types with their physical conditions have not as yet 
been properly worked out, though the Brigalow scrub 
is a specific characteristic of the hot, tropical conditions 
of northern and north-eastern Australia, while the 
Mallee characterizes the warm-temperate climate of the 
southern and south-western parts. 

The Brigalow Scrub is best represented in Queensland 
behind the coastal range and south of the Gulf of 
Carpentaria, amid climatic conditions which recall those 
of the drier parts of the Brazilian sertao and the portion 



THE BRIGALOW SCRUB 179 

of the Egyptian Sudan extending at the foot of Abys- 
sinia. Accordingly, its appearance and mode of life 
offer a striking resemblance to the thorn-bushes of 
those regions. 

The scrub derives its name from its chief component, 
the Brigalow acacia, a shrub or small tree with hard, 
grey, sickle-shaped leaves, and makes a true acacia 
thornwood. Apart from this, which is very intolerant 
of other trees, there are two trees of the same family, 
and a few other tall shrubs, the most characteristic 
of which is the sandal -wood or dog-wood. The smaller 
plants and woody perennials gather round the centres 
formed by the tall shrubs, and often make up impene- 
trable thickets. Grass is very scanty, but herbs with 
bright flowers the African marigold and the scarlet 
pimelea relieve with their gaudy colours the prevailing 
shimmering silvery -grey tone. 

The thornwood becomes more scattered towards the 
dry interior, and passes into an acacia serni-desert, but 
towards the east, and on moister soils, it invades the 
savana and passes to a park-prairie with grass-glades. 
The scrub and the grass, however, never intermingle. 
The thorny bush advances in the midst of the swards 
with an unbroken, impenetrable front, .and, untouched 
by cattle or sheep, slowly claims the grass expanses 
which have been exhausted by excessive grazing. 

The Mallee Scrub belongs to the half-arid interior of 
the southern and south-western portions of Australia, in 
a warm temperate climate. The impression given by 
a Mallee landscape is one of extreme monotony: *A 
boundless, waving sea of yellowish-brown bushes. In 
the far distance is the blue outline of an isolated hill or 
a granite top. Otherwise the uniform dark-brown circle 
of the horizon remains unbroken, silent and motion- 

N 2 



180 AUSTRALIA 

less, except for the plaintive cry of the scrub fowl or 
the rustle of the dry twigs stirred by a puff of wind/ 
This scrub is composed, in the main, of three or four 
bushy forms of eucalyptus, crowded together. Each 
shrub consists of a close crop or bundle of long, thin 
shoots, of the height of a man, ending in bunches of 
long dull-green, leathery leaves. A small conifer, callitriv, 
occurs occasionally in the bush : elsewhere, the strange 
melaleucas, the leafless casuarinas, and a few others 
with heath-like or vertical leaves, appear where the 
scrub opens. There is no grass, and hardly any flowers 
on the bare, yellow or rust-coloured soil. Seasons may 
pass without altering the aspect of the Mallee, to which 
no exact analogue is known in any part of the world. 

The Mulga appears to correspond in some measure 
to the acacia semi-desert of Africa; but its aspect is 
more varied, its definition more vague than that of 
either the Brigalow or the Mallee. The name is probably 
applied to the semi-desert scrub which borders on the 
desert and penetrates into it. Thus the western margin 
of the great plateau with a rainfall under 10 inches, 
the eastern foot of the same tableland from south to 
north, and the strip of higher ground with hill-ranges 
that separate the great sandy desert on the north 
from the great Victoria desert on the south and enclose 
many tracts of pure desert, appear to answer, to the 
description of the Mulga territory. 

Mulga appears to be made up of a scattered scrub of 
thorny acacias, with a ragged carpet of grass. Some- 
times it is said to crowd into dense thickets ; sometimes 
it resembles a low meagre sward studded with bush 
acacias : in this form it is the equivalent of the marginal 
vegetation of the Sudanese Sahara ; sometimes it occurs 
as oases in the desert. Among the good fodder-grasses 



THE MULGA 



181 



available there are reckoned several species of those 
kinds of tutdropuyoii, aridula, stipa, &c., which occur 
also in arid parts of Africa and America: others, like 
the kangaroo grass and the porcupine grass, are restricted 
to Australia. The typical desert grass is the ^ >///.//>./;. 
whose little balls of long, narrow, hairy leaves are 
anchored in the sand by means oi' a network of long, 




FIG. Co. A station in tlie Savana Country, N. Australia. 
Note the grass trees. 

thin, wiry roots. This scrub may ultimately be reduced 
to a thin carpet of flowering herbs, with little grass. 

The large alkali tracts of the central lowlands, as in 
other arid countries, are covered with juicy and fleshy 
salt bushes. In the north the swamps are beset by 
relatives of the spinach, the rhagodm, and, miifde nbeckia. 
These salt steppes provide a good feeding for sheep and 
cattle. 



182 AUSTRALIA 

Some forms of what is here included under Mulga are 
not entirely without economic use. They may serve as 
grazing grounds during the rainy years, but the fluc- 
tuations of the precipitation render their pasturage 
precarious and temporary. 

Great Central Desert. This covers the largest part 
of the western tableland and portions of the central 
lowland, and is split into a number of minor areas like 
the Great Sandy Desert, the Gibson Desert, the Victoria 
Desert, and others. Beyond the fact that it contains no 
grass other than solitary tufts of triodia and spinifex 
and, occasionally, shrubs of acacia and casuarina which 
correspond to the gum acacias and the tamarisks of the 
Sahara, little is known of its specific vegetation. It has 
no oases, properly speaking, but only approximations to 
them in the shape of patches of Mulga. However, there 
is a 'Glen of Palms* on the north slope of Maedomiell 
Range. 

Murray-Darling Valley and South Australia. At 
the back of the south-eastern highlands the plains are 
clothed with a grass-land of a warm temperate type, 
the surface of which is sprinkled over with trees and 
shrubs a park landscape resembling some formations 
of southern Rhodesia or of southern Brazil and 
Uruguay. A similar park grass-land of a warm 
temperate stamp existed at one time along the coast 
of South Australia, but it has been largely transformed 
for agricultural purposes. 

Here again eucalyptus, acacias, mimosas, and other 
brightly flowering trees and shrubs compose the higher 
vegetation, while among the short grasses are inter- 
spersed a large number of beautiful herbs, which burst 
into flower at the beginning of the rainy season in 
winter: the summer is parched and scorching. One 



MURRAY-DARLING VALLEY 



183 



encounters here an approximation to the condition of 
the mediterranean climates ; and this is increasingly the 
case as one travels farther south. 

These lands within the belts of 20 inches of rain- 
fall should form excellent wheat and maize territories, 
but a large part of them also affords a vast scope to 
pastoral industries. 




FIG. 64. Savana landscape in East Australia, 

Mediterranean Portions of Southern Australia. The 

belt of westerly storms of the austral ocean advances 
northwards in winter and reaches the two southern ex- 
tensions of Australia, creating a climate almost exactly 
similar to that of the Mediterranean. Accordingly, the 
vegetation of south-western Australia and that of South 
Victoria is in many respects a replica of that of the 
Mediterranean, of central Chile, and of California. Its 



184 



AUSTRALIA 



most luxuriant expression is found along the south- 
western shore of Australia, in majestic evergreen forests 





















FJG. 05. Gum-troe or Eucalyptus Forest in Australia. 

of tall eucalyptus, with an abundant undergrowth of 
hard-leaved shrubs, but practically no grass carpet. It 
is extremely rich in remarkable shrubs with beautiful 



MEDITERRANEAN PORTIONS OF AUSTRALIA 185 

riowers. Here is the home of these gorgeous shrubs 
acacias, mimosas, proteas, banksias, and heath-like 
fjpacridaceae which are now cultivated along the 
Mediterranean and provide us with flowers in mid- 
winter. At the back of this belt the rainfall diminishes 
very rapidly, and the scrub, mainly of the Mallee type, 
interspersed with grass-lands, forms an intermediate 
zone leading to the inland Mulga. 

Along the shores of the Spencer Gulf, the forest form 
is much less developed, but the undergrowth of hard- 
leaved shrubs builds extensive scrub which exactly 
corresponds to the Calif ornian chaparral and to the Medi- 
terranean and South African maquis. These formations, 
which are sometimes termed sand-heaths, are frequently 
interrupted by tracts of Mallee. 

It was to be expected that there should be a free 
interchange of natural products between countries so 
similar as this and the Mediterranean and California. 
From Europe, Australia took the vine, the olive, the 
orange, and indeed most of its fruit-trees, while it sent 
back eucalyptus, acacia, and a large number of other 
shrubs and ornamental perennials. Quite naturally, 
these Australian Rivieras are developing along the same 
lines as the Mediterranean and California!!, with which 
they compete as regards the vine, orange, and other 
fruits. 

Sarana Woods. Perhaps the most extensive and the 
most useful plant-formation of Australia, as it is also 
the most characteristic, is the eucalyptus savana. 

Africa has the baobab, the ceiba, and the borassus 
palm, and many leaf-shedding trees in its savanas; 
South America possesses also savana woods of the 
deciduous type ; but Australia possesses in the euca- 
lyptus an evergreen timber-tree of the greatest beauty 



186 



AUSTRALIA 



and economic value. In the mediterranean coastal strip 
of West Australia the eucalyptus forest is, properly 
speaking, an evergreen woodland overtopped by euca- 
lyptus trees ; but in eastern Australia, over most of the 
coastal highlands as well as over a broad margin of 
plains on the inland side, the eucalyptus is intimately 
associated with the grass-land. It stands either singly 




FIG. C6. Eucalyptus forest clenrod for wheat : harvest time 8. Australia. 

or in loose forests : when single, it is regularly dotted 
over the grassy plain without undergrowth, and casts 
hardly any shade by reason of the vertical drooping of its 
scythe-like leaves : when it occurs in regular forests, as 
in the mountains, it may be entirely destitute of any 
undergrowth other than grass, or possess a sort of 
scrubby underwood of evergreens. The forests are 



188 AUSTRALIA 

always loose, and extremely clear, and the trees reach 
huge dimensions, rising sometimes to 300-400 feet, 
furnishing an excellent timber. The strong tap-root 
is able to reach the ground-water at great depths. 
They may be truly represented as the most useful trees 
of Australia. 

From tropical Queensland to New South Wales the 
land covered by savana woods is extremely favourable 
to agriculture, and the range of produce that can be 
raised with success is enormous, including sugar-cane, 
cotton, pine apple, mango, and other equatorial produce, 
as well as mediterranean, and even rlorthern crops and 
fruits in the south. The eucalyptus savana is equally 
favourable to grazing and derived industries. The belt 
characterized by it, on account of its extent and fertility, 
may be said to be the greatest agricultural asset of 
Australia. 

South-eastern Temperate Rain-forest. The seaward 
slopes of the eastern highlands, south of the tropics to 
Cape Moore, receive rain fairly regularly throughout 
the year, and enjoy a mild, moist, and equable climate, 
which determines the development of temperate rain- 
forests. This hilly coastal strip is soon followed inland 
by the mountain ranges. 

The Australian temperate rain-forest has a physiog- 
nomy of its own, distinct from that of any other in the 
world. This is due again to the presence of the colossal 
gum-trees, 300-400 feet high, which compose an irregular 
and light canopy, far above the lower tier. The latter 
which resembles. the rain-forest proper, is characterized 
by an abundance of graceful tree-ferns, the cyatheas, 
alsophilas, dicksonias, and todeas, of arboreal com- 
positae^ acacias, and proteaceae, together with large 
climbing ferns and grasses, while the undergrowth is 



SOUTH-EASTERN TEMPERATE RAIN-FOREST 189 

crowded with ferns. In the valleys, the second tier 
consists almost exclusively of those tree- and herb-ferns 
which have given the name to the famous fern-gullies of 
south-eastern Australia. 

The orange and vine, and cereals, chiefly maize, are 
grown, and dairy farming, and many other such indus- 
tries, give an unlimited scope to the agriculture of this 
wealthy territory. 

Northern Portion of the Eastern Highlands. Within 
the tropics, the eastern part of the Queensland highlands 
receives the benefit of the south-east trades and of the 
summer monsoon, but it is only along narrow and 
short strips here and there that the rainfall is sufficient 
to support the true selva or rain-forest. The general 
vegetation is of that lighter type of tropical forest called 
'jungle ' in India and ' bush ' in Australia. The euca- 
lypti, acacias, and banksias play here quite a secondary 
part in the vegetation: they are replaced by true 
tropical species allied to those of the Indo-Malayan flora ; 
among them is found a stingftig-tree or tree-nettle. 
Near the tropic appear several kinds of araucarias, one 
of which gives an edible nut. As may be expected, all 
tropical produce can be freely grown here. 

Tasmania consists of a high tableland about 3,000 feet 
in elevation, rising and falling in step-like terraces, and 
surrounded by a broken and difficult hill-land. The 
whole island is fairly well watered, especially in the 
west, and its climate is mild. The central plateau is 
a grass-land of park-like aspect, while the mountain 
girdle is clad with forests similar to those of south- 
eastern Australia, where the giant eucalypti and the 
tree-ferns are most conspicuous. In the west and south, 
evergreen beeches and conifers, mostly peculiar to the 
island, impart to the forests the appearance of those 




IK;. US. Tree-ferns in a gully, Blue Mountains, S.E. Australia. 



TASMANIA 191 

of southern Chile and southern New Zealand. The 
central grassy plateau is naturally mainly pastoral, 
while agriculture finds very favourable conditions in 
the valleys, and lumbering on the slopes. 

New Guinea is completely equatorial in its climate. 
The interior is as yet practically unknown, but it appears 
to be entirely wooded. The northern portion, separated 
from the south by a high mountain-range, supports the 
densest type of tropical rain-forest, while in the south, 
which is somewhat drier, the selva proper appears to be 
confined to the river margins, a lighter forest or jungle 
occupying the intervening lands. It is also known 
that typical savanas, with eucalypti recalling those of 
Australia, are found inland about 1,200 to 1,500 feet 
on the southern side. 

New Caledonia, parallel to the coastal range of 
Queensland, and situated on the margin of the tropical 
belt, within the trade- wind belt, enjoys a healthy, 
equable, and relatively dry climate. Broadly speaking, 
it is divided by a long inland chain of mountains and 
high plateaus into a moister eastern and a drier western 
portion. The coastal strip of lowlands, up to 1,000 feet, 
recalls the semi-arid belt of northern Australia, with a 
vegetation of savanas and a peculiar kind of wood- 
land, with scattered, stunted melaleucas, small trees 40 
feet high, arising out of an entirely bare ground. Only 
the river margins possess parallel bands of tropical 
forest. The slopes from 1,000 to 3,000 feet are more 
regularly timbered except on the ridges, and their 
forests greatly resemble the rain-forests of south-eastern 
Australia. The upper forest belt displays a great wealth 
of conifers, including araucarias and ferns. The dry, 
stony plateaus are covered with a short evergreen scrub. 
The variety of the vegetation and of the resources in 



192 



AUSTRALIA 



timber, pastures, and agricultural land, and the pleasant- 
ness of the climate, make New Caledonia a little inde- 
pendent world capable of the highest development, like 
New Zealand and Tasmania. 

New Zealand is entirely situated in the temperate 
latitudes, corresponding to those of southern Europe, 
and enjoys, on the whole, a very mild equable climate. 




FIG. 69. Kauri Logs and Forest, N. Zealand. 

Only the upper reaches of the southern Alps rise to the 
cold belt and possess permanent glaciers. 

The distribution of the 'rain fall over the North Island 
and the northern point of South Island is fairly uniform 
and abundant throughout the year. This combination* 
of an equable and mild climate with a plentiful moisture 
is ideal for the development of the temperate rain-forest, 
which finds here a luxuriant expression. One or two 



NEW ZEALAND 193 

species of the smaller palms give a touch of the sub- 
tropics, while the wealth of tree-ferns recalls south- 
eastern Australia. Stately conifers, however, of species 
entirely confined to this region the kauri (dammara), 
the kahikatea (podocarpm), &c., among them give 
the temperate stamp to the 'Bush'. There are many 
other huge trees, most of them with leathery, oval 
leaves. The extreme luxuriance of the forest is due to 
countless ferns, mosses, and lichens, &c. ; climbers, creepers, 
and shrubs, which make progress almost impossible. 
A specific feature is the absence of bright flowers. 

Towards the south, the small-leaved evergreen beech 
(called * black birch') becomes increasingly abundant, 
and the forest loses much of its profusion, assuming the 
aspect of the south Chilian beech forest. The evergreen 
beech only covers the western slopes of the southern 
Alps. On the opposite side of the range, the rainfall 
has decreased to 30-40 inches, and the forest remains 
confined, in an impoverished condition, to the moister 
gullies. The undulating plain which extends at the foot 
of the Alps, in spite of a fair rainfall, is so swept by 
winds as to become comparatively dry. Tree-growth is 
scattered and low. The plain is covered with a sort of 
park-prairie or park-steppe, excellent alike for grazing and 
agriculture : here is the home of the New Zealand flax. 

The natural resources of New Zealand are varied and 
abundant. The timber is extremely valuable and plen- 
tiful yet, despite its rapid destruction. Agriculture and 
grazing are very prosperous. Subtropical and medi- 
terranean fruits, maize and hard wheat, as well as all 
our temperate produce, are grown in large quantities. 
With its healthy climate, and the influx of the white 
population, it has now come abreast of European com- 
munities in every respect. .The natives themselves, now 



194 



AUSTRALIA 



fast disappearing, had reached a fair stage of civilization 
before the arrival of the white man. 

Pacific Islands. The great bulk of the countless 
Pacific islands lie within the intra-tropical belt, and 
therefore enjoy a thoroughly equable, warm, and rainy 
climate, the outcome of which is a luxuriant forest 
growth. Palms constitute one of the most common 




IMG. 7u. Pineapple Plantation. 

features of these islands. The coco-nut palm, which 
forms a fringe round most islands, and the sago palm 
are the most useful. Yams and colocasias furnish 
starch -containing roots. The bread-fruit tree and the 
banana offer an easy and abundant food. Numerous . 
spices are also found, while cultivation can raise the 
whole range of tropical fruits and produce. Mangrove- 
awamps occur occasionally on muddy shores. 



CHAPTER V 
AFRICA 

General. Well astride of the equator, the dark conti- 
nent is the most symmetrical of the large land masses. 
With its centre in the belt of equatorial calms and rains, 
it passes through the regions of trade winds into those 
of tropical high pressures, clear skies, and droughts, 
exposing only a narrow fringe on either side to the 
mediterranean climates. In its broad features, African 
vegetation may be summarized as follows : 

Mediterranean 
Tropical Deserts 
Tropical Savanas 
Equatorial Selva 

Tropical Savanas 

Tropical Deserts 

Mediterranean. 

The symmetry of this diagram is broken by the 
unequal distribution of African lands in the two hemi- 
spheres. The much greater area under the northern 
tropic not only exposes a larger surface to drought 
but tends to emphasize the aridity of. the climate, by 
a sort of cumulative effect : hence the striking disparity 
between the Sahara and the austral deserts. Yet that 
the ratios between arid and total areas on the two 
sides of the equator are so disproportionate is not 
adequately explained by a mere consideration of total 
surfaces. South Africa is open to the moisture-bearing 
winds from the boundless, austral ocean, without any 

o 2 



196 



AFRICA 



interference ; while the north and east of the continent 
is dominated by the vast mass of Eurasia from which no 
moisture comes. The relative lowness of most of northern 
Africa, as contrasted with the high elevation of the 




FIG. 71. Physical Features of Africa. 

southern extremity, also permits much less condensation.* 
Owing to those circumstances, in southern Africa the 
place of the desert is taken by a vast extent of very dry, 
but not desert, grass- land. 



GENERAL 



197 



The western extension of the continent for thirty 
degrees of longitude under the northern tropic, the 
excessive heating of the atmosphere over the broiling 




FIG. 72. Mean Annual Rainfall of Africa. FIG. 73. Seasonal Distribution of Rainfall. 




FIG. 74. Mean Temperature of Africa, reduced to sea-level. 



surface of that desert, and the existence of a sufficient 
relief along the Guinea coast at sub-equatorial latitudes, 
combine to produce a partly monsoon and partly 



198 



AFRICA 



equatorial belt of excessive moisture and the exuberant 
Guinea selva. The equatorial rain-forest is not carried 
over from shore to shore. This is to be explained by 




Mediterranean\^gQ 
D Desert&.PoorScrub 
EH Scrub 
EJ Steppe 



HI Park Land (Savana) 
HotWet Fordt 



FIG. 75. Vegetation of Africa. 

the absence of moist north-eastern trade winds ; by the 
eastern equatorial portion being an elevated plateau ; by 
the south-eastern trade windg exhausting their moisture 



GENERAL 199 

first on Madagascar, find the irregular mountains that 
skirt the eastern tableland ; and by part of the mon- 
soons being deflected and drawn towards the lofty mass 
of Abyssinia. As a consequence, the mountain and hill- 
ranges strewn over the high plains alone have sufficient 
moisture for the maintenance of heavy rain-forests, and 
these are so high that they are mountain forests rather 
than selvas. The undulating high plain has a savana 
climate and vegetation. 

The elevation of the Congo basin and the barriers 
surrounding it reduce the rainfall, and thus the area 
of the selvas, which are neither so widespread nor so 
strongly developed as those of the Amazoni. South of 
them the savana covers nearly the whole breadth of austral 
Africa. The tropical type of grass-lands passes with 
higher latitudes into a subtropical, then to a temperate 
type. The bulk of the grass area corresponds to the 
trade-winds belt on the oceans, and with the elevated 
austral plateau on land. The sea winds spend their 
moisture on the eastern and southern scarps of the 
plateau, which are in consequence covered with a girdle 
of forests. The tableland has only a moderate rainfall, 
and the evaporation is greater. 

Mediterranean Africa. The Atlas Ranges separate 
from Africa a strip of mountainous land, whose climate 
is closely related to that of central and eastern Spain. 
Mediterranean Africa or Mauretania, as it was formerly 
called, extends from Tunis to Mogador, and it includes 
a long and winding valley called the Tell hemmed in 
between a lower and much broken coastal range and the 
northern slopes of the Atlas. This broadens in the ex- 
treme west into fertile plains open to the Atlantic 
winds. On the whole, the country is fertile, and the 
vegetation resembles that of the mediterranean portion 



200 AFRICA 

of Spain. Had it been preserved in its original state, 
it would have been that of an open woodland and 
shrubland of hard-leaved evergreens where the grass 
is dry and wiry, finding a parallel in the valleys of 
California and Central Chile. Successive girdles of 
vegetation depend on altitude. The lowest zone consists 
of the coastal and western plains of the Tell valley. 




FIG. 76. Gorge in Mountains of Algeria. 

This is covered with forests of Aleppo pines, cork oaks, 
and white or deciduous oaks, of palm groves, and olive 
clumps, varying with the soil. The undergrowth consists 
of numerous evergreen shrubs such as tree-heath, dwarf- 
oak, cistus, lentiscus, rosemary, &c., and still more numer- 
ous undershrubs such as thyme and lavender. The 
forests have now been almost entirely cleared away 
for agricultural purposes. Ifi the fields are to be seen 



MEDITERRANEAN AFRICA. 



201 



olives, figs, date-palms, vines, and other fruit-trees; 
tobacco, maize, lucerne, &c. Waste lands are covered 
with a high and dense scrub of prickly green bushes 




FIG. 77. Atlas Cedars Algeria. 

forming the maquis, or with close thickets of dwarf 
palms. 

On the lower slopes some prosperous forests of ever- 
green oaks have been lefib. Cork oaks predominate 



202 AFRICA 

below, with undergrowth of myrtles, tree-heaths, straw- 
berry trees and other shrubs, while ilex forests are more 
abundant farther up. Most of the original covering has 
long been destroyed, as in the plain, and the slopes are 
clad with dense scrub, when they are not entirely bare. 

At about 1,600 feet, mountain vegetation, represented 
by the cedar of the Atlas, mingles with the holm-oak, 
above this the cedar forms the forest, mixed here and there 
with deciduous trees up to the tree limit at 5,500 feet. 
Loose brushes of lavender and other small bushes are 
scattered over the stony tops. The upper girdles have 
been somewhat better preserved, perhaps on account of 
their steeper slopes. 

The variety of cultivation which is possible in this 
part of Africa offered great scope to the settled tribes of 
Kabyles and Berbers. Unfortunately pastoral and more 
warlike tribes conquered the land, and have held it now 
tor centuries and kept it back. Strife between agri- 
culturist and nomad is still rampant in the western 
or Moroccan region, and is a serious obstacle to its 
prosperity. The easternmost outlier of typical Mediter- 
ranean evergreen vegetation is found in Cyrenaica or 
Barka, but in a much poorer form. Mauretania, with 
its desirable climate and the rich rewards it offers to 
human industry, has at all times attracted invasions 
from the east. Its historical ground is bestrewn with 
the ruins of the Mediterranean civilizations, Greek, 
Phoenician, Roman, Arab, which it successively shared. 

The Atlas Interment Plateaus. Behind the great 
barrier of the Northern Atlas is an elevated region of 
vast arid plateaus, arranged in parallel terraces and 
dotted with innumerable salt lakes or ' shotts '. Those 
plateaus reappear south of the Saharan Atlas, running 
as a sort of shelf along thet foot of the inland slopes of 



THE ATLAS INTERMONT PLATEAUS 203 

the range. In this region the rainfall is greatly reduced 
and the climate is semi-desert, although heavy downpours 
may occasionally cause disastrous floods. The variations 
of heat and cold are necessarily greater than in the 
surrounding lowlands. 

These high plains give us a foretaste of the great desert. 
At first sight theite seems to be nothing but a boundless 
sea of scattered tufts of alfa or esparto grass over 
stony plateaus. Soon, however, one discovers a network 
of broad and winding, waterless river-beds converging 
towards the shallow shotts. These are marked by other 
steppes, covered chiefly with wormwood, in small whitish 
bunches. The saline tracts surrounding the shotts are 
laid out in belts of fleshy salt-bushes or succulents. 
Small dunes may interrupt these belts. They are the 
home of a desert-grass, the ' drinn ' (aristida pungent*), 
a favourite fodder of camels. Trees are absent, or con- 
fined to some isolated and thin orchards in the more 
fertile hollows with some ground moisture. They are 
reduced to the size and shape of shrubs such as the 
batoum pistacio and the thorny jujube-tree. 

Amid such arid tracts, fresh-water sources and oases 
are welcome features. Large oases line the southern 
shelf of the Saharan Atlas : the largest of them, Figuig, 
Ain-Sefra, Laghuat, Biskra, appear like seas of waving 
date-palms. They are the true gates of the desert, 
the starting-points of those thin straggling lines of 
travel which span the immensity; but there are hun- 
dreds of other sources of water, in which man has 
bored wells. By thus tapping and utilizing the waters, he 
has dotted the desert with fertile orchards and gardens 
of fresh verdure. 

As might be expected, the Saharan Atlas is much 
drier than the northern branch; the slopes are now 



204 AFRICA 

mostly bare, with blue-green patches of alfa grass, and 
only in the ravines and at the heads of gorges, sheltered 
and inaccessible, can scattered woods of green oak, 
Aleppo pine, and juniper be discovered : they are 
probably vestiges of once much more extensive forests. 
The high plateaus can support but temporarily the 
passing herds of sheep and goats, or trains of camels 
and horses. The esparto grass is, however, a valuable 
product, the collection of which occupies a few hundreds 
of workmen scattered in wandering communities along 
the railway lines. 

The African Islands. The Canary Islands grouped 
on the west coast of the Sahara are able, by reason 
of their altitude, to condense a certain amount of oceanic 
moisture, and form a link between the Mediterranean 
region and the desert. The lower slopes are related 
with the neighbouring mainland in point of aridity. 
Their vegetation is of semi-desert character, consisting 
mainly of succulent plants. The dragon tree and the 
Canary date-palm are the chief trees, in addition to the 
olive, the Atlantic pistacia, and the Phoenician juniper. 
Outside the cultivated alluvial valleys, this belt offers 
little else than stone fields and rocks bestrewn with 
succulents and meagre bushes of the broom and heather 
type. The middle belt, from 4,000 to 7,000 feet, has 
open slopes clad with scrub of mediterranean character, 
and in the secluded gorges, temperate evergreen rain- 
forests have found refuge. The extension of Canary 
pine-forests above the preceding zone coincides with 
the belt of clouds and mists which frequently hide the 
upper slopes. More or less scattered bushes of retama, 
a kind of broom, characterize the Alpine zone, which 
reaches 8,500 feet. 

The Canary Islands have played an important part in 



THE AFRICAN ISLANDS 205 

the history of agriculture : a number of products of the 
Old World, such as the sugar-cane and the banana, only 
became American after a stage of acclimatization in 
those islands. The native populations, now wiped out, 
were mainly agricultural, and reached a fairly high 
standard of civilization. 

Madeira, with Very much the same plant-life, enjoys 
a moister climate, while, except for a few fertile spots, 
the Cape Verde Islands remain huge naked blocks of 
lava. 

Sahara. Three main aspects have been distinguished 
in the Great Desert. They are produced not by climatic 
differences but by the nature of the surface. 

The hamada, or rocky desert, is due to the cracking 
and splitting of the rocks by alternate expansions and 
contractions brought about by abrupt changes of tem- 
perature. It occurs as bare hills, as tablelands intersected 
by waterless river-beds, as undulating expanses and 
broken outcrops, or as isolated blocks, vestiges of the prim- 
itive surface, rising above the accumulated detritus. Low 
bushes are sparsely scattered on the bare floor, anchoring 
their roots in the fissures and cracks. Despite the scarcity 
of the vegetation, it is surprising to find in the hamada 
a large variety of species, among which are the alfa, the 
white artemisia, and several sage-like shrubs, or again 
various loose and leafless undershrubs. When the waste 
rocks of the ruined hamada are worn down to pebbles 
and gravel, or where the surface is clayey and stony, the 
desert is known as * reg ' or ' areg '. This gives the im- 
pression of a flat, boundless, almost plantless waste of 
pebbles, where sheep and camels can find practically no 
food. The immense barren is dotted with what at first 
sight appear like rounded, low, whitish boulders, but, 
on inspection, turn out to be extremely dense tussocks 



206 



AFRICA 



of a cushion plant, the anabasis, also called ' desert 
cauliflower'. Such tussocks are made up of packed 
bundles of wiry shoots bristling with leathery, short, 
pointed and crowded leaves, arid glued fast together by 
the dried clay. But for a few distant leafless bushes 
of zollikoferia and ephedra, two feet high, the ground 
seems bare as far as the horizon : on looking carefully, 
however, one discovers a large variety of pigmy plants. 




FIG. 78. Reg Desert Sinai. 1 

Where the gravel and clay are ground to impalpable 
drifting sands, the formations of sand-dunes or 'erg' 
arise. Vast tracts of this sea of moving sand may 
remain entirely plantless: nothing seems to vary the 
beauty of the vivid orange billows ; but, at other places 
and more frequently, the surface is sprinkled with spots 

1 Reproduced from a photograph of the Ordnance Survey by per- 
mission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office. 



SAHARA 207 

of a delicate greyish-green. Desultory bushes of leafless 
retama, buried and then uprooted by the wind, of 
Saharan broom, tufts of drinn-grass, spurge, and 
some other dry undershrubs and grasses are scattered 
over the sand. Farther on, the dunes may be partially 
or temporarily fixed by the binding aristida, and the 
tamarix endeavours to form a thin heath. 

These three main varieties of the Sahara appear to be 
distributed in vast areas or regions which they ' may 
serve to characterize. Thus the westernmost or coastal 
band, including the Rio de Oro and Sahel and extending 
down to Senegal, is chiefly one of hamadas and aregs : 
a second region, stretching from Tunis to the western 
Aderar, includes the Great Erg, the Igidi and Elgof, 
and is a colossal sea of sand-dunes : to the east, a 
broad expanse of hamadas and aregs characterizes the 
somewhat higher plateaus of Ahaggar continued south- 
ward by that of Ahir ; and is followed again by the 
somewhat interrupted and lower ergs of the Fezzan and 
Teda. The central portion, reaching south to the Chad 
and embracing the Tibu with the Tibesti range, is 
mostly hamada and reg. The Libyan desert, beyond 
the oases of Farafreh, El Khargeh, and Dakhel, is one 
vast unbroken stretch of dreary barren sands. In the 
Egyptian and Nubian deserts is shown a recurrence of 
the rocky and clayey, hilly type divided or interrupted by 
the narrow valley of the Nile or Egypt proper. Beyond 
the Red Sea again, the Arabian desert is divided into 
vast seas of moving sand and wastes of stone and lava. 

The saline tracts characteristic of all deserts are 
always present in the Sahara, with their usual vegetation 
of fleshy or ' succulent ' salt-bushes. As may be noticed 
on the maps, the caravan routes avoid the ergs and go 
from well to well, and from (jasis to oasis, over and along 



208 AFRICA 

the hamadas and the regs. The oases, due to the 
accumulation of underground water or to the short 
mountain streams which lose themselves in the sands, 
are found in depressions or along the foot of the heights 
and tablelands. The well-known date-palm, which is 
the feature of their vegetation, is useful alike for its 
protection and for its products and by-products, just 
as the camel is valuable in so many ways. The date- 
palm' in the oases and the camel on the road are the two 
essentials of desert life ; and the very simple existence 
of the nomads and of the few settled communities is 
practically based on them. 

Sudan Semi-Desert. The transition from the desert 
to the less arid southern regions is very gradual. A 
certain amount of rain falls between July and September, 
but this is very irregular, and some years may be 
practically rainless. 

The semi-desert naturally offers a more varied land- 
scape than the desert, on account of a more severe erosion. 
Small trees and a dearth of grass appear to be the most 
prominent features of the vegetation. First, small bushes 
and low, gnarled trees, either solitary or in thin groves, 
make their appearance. They no longer belong to the 
mediterranean flora, but consist largely of various species 
of acacias and acacia-like plants, often thorny or prickly, 
with small, deciduous leaves ; other plants are swollen 
into water reservoirs ; the majority are resinous or waxy. 
Presently, the isolated bushes cluster in loose scrub ; on 
some of the tablelands, besides entirely bare stretches, 
sprinklings or even thickets of acacias occur occasion- 
ally, on others, sparse but regular deciduous woodlands 
are formed by a relative of the balsam-trees, commiphora 
the aderas, on the naked soil. Grass is confined to 
the river-beds and to a few c slopes. In depressions with 



SUDAN SEMI-DESERT 



209 



a sufficiency of ground water, groves, woods, or even 
extensive forests of doum-palm (hyphaene thebaica) are 
the rule; but the predominant features are the 
acacia, of which there are many species, some of them 
local, others of wide distribution, and the umbrella shape 
of the thorny trees arranged in scattered woods. The 
clayey soils, heavy and retentive, generally remain tree- 




FIG. 79. Semi-desert Nigeria. 

less and give rise to marshes and even lagoons. Here 
and there swards of pennisetum grass may be seen. 
Some cultivation is now possible, the dhurra millet 
being the commonest crop. 

Such are the general features of the belt of land, about 

o 

300 miles broad on an average, which stretches from the 
Atlantic to the Red Sea, on the margin of the desert. It 



210 



AFRICA 



is to be compared with similar belts round the Australian 
desert, especially on the northern side, and with the 
southern margins of the Afghan and Indian deserts. 
Such regions are naturally passage ways: the number 
of wells and water-holes increases as the desert is left 
behind; yet cultivation remains localized in a very 




FIG. 80. Open Brush Nigeria. 

few and small areas. The tending of sheep, camels, 
and half-wild cattle is the main occupation of the 
nomad populations. 

Sudanese Savana. The savana is one of the most 
widespread landscapes of Africa: it extends in an 
uninterrupted belt around the great forest region, from 
Senegal to the Egyptian Swlan, thence over the region 



SUDANESE SAVANA 211 

of the Great Lakes, and round across the whole of the 
Zambezi region back to the Atlantic. It results from the 
tropical climate with a moderate amount of rainfall and 
a long spell of drought. 

Though the series of trees, shrubs, grasses, and herbs 
changes, the savana preserves throughout, despite differ- 
ences of detail, its main characteristics of tall grass- 
land dotted with deciduous trees and bushes, either 
dispersed or in woods. So gradual are the transitions 
from the poorest to the richest forms of vegetation; 
from the desert lands, whether of Sahara, Somali, or 
Kalahari, to the dark selvas ; that any sharp boundary 
between the semi-desert and the savana. or between the 
latter and the light tropical woodland, is out of the 
question. Representative forms and formations of the 
desert and the semi-desert continue for a time to 
intermingle with the specific savana vegetation, while 
isolated members of the high forest penetrate far into 
the park-land. 

The Sudanese savana belt extends from Senegal to the 
Upper Nile amid a varied landscape, now of high table- 
lands, now of lower plains. Some kind of acacia, 
mimosa, or allied tree is always in sight, often gather- 
ing in loose woods, sometimes dotted singly, not unfre- 
quently making, with many other small trees, regular 
thickets drowned in the tall grass. Large deciduous 
trees like the baobab, the ceiba, the tamarind, the 
sycamore, or a banyan- like fig-tree prefer to stand 
alone in the open. The guttifer shi-butter or butter- 
and-tallow tree is also one of the economic features. 
Palms of the borassus type and kernel oil-palms form 
groves in the south, whereas the doum-palm prevails in 
the north. The raphia wine-palm adorns the margins of 
rivers and lakes. 

p 2 



212 



AFRICA 



Senegambia is a low tract of land of a decided savana 
type, while retaining a number of semi-desert plant 
forms. South of the Gambia, the vegetation increases 
in variety and luxuriance as it approaches the high- 
forest region ; yet the intervening sandstone plateaus 
offer but stunted forms of woods and scrub, in which 
acacias are predominant. Farther east, to the south of 




FIG. 81. High Savana Brush Nigeria. 

the Niger, the high tablelands are mantled with tall 
grass interspersed with bushes, among which is the 
laiidolphia rubber-bush. Trees are comparatively rare 
and scattered, so that an open tree-steppe is formed : 
towards the south, they fail entirely. In the plateau, 
rivers have cut deep and narrow valleys the slopes of 
which are forest-clad. 



SUDANESE SAVANA 213 

This district gives way to the vast Niger-Benue plain 
which resumes the character of park-savana, consider- 
able portions of the plain being under an impenetrable 
grassy jungle, or again under orchards of small trees 
overgrown with a rank crop of gigantic grass. Rivers, 
now broad and at a level with the land which they 
frequently flood, <are marked from afar by fringes of 
tall palms or dense margin-forest. Towards Kano, the 
savana passes rapidly to the acacia half-desert. 

Lake Chad, which occupies the centre of a vast arid 
depression, at the point of transition from the half-desert 
to the true savana-land, is girt with a broad belt of 
swamps, and the delta of the Shari River is covered with 
a dense growth of acacias. Following to the south- 
east, the territory of the Middle Shari is also part of 
the typical park-savana which displays here a variety 
of trees, the acacia type predominating with the butter- 
and-tallow tree, the tamarind and baobab. Nearer Lake 
Chad the clayey nature of the soil gives rise to immense 
swamps and lagoons, partly overgrown and surrounded 
with reeds, an infertile, sweltering, and often impassable 
land. 

The Nile portion of the savana, the Bahr-al-Ghazal 
basin, exhibits much the same characteristics with 
a tendency towards the thornbush type. It is marked 
by an abundance of doum-palms and several forms of the 
Nubian flora. Amid the uniformity of the grassy plains 
arise sometimes rocky islands, some 600 to 900 feet high, 
which are clad with a very luxuriant tropical forest and 
defended by belts of dense acacia thickets. In the vast 
swamps of this district grow the papyrus, the common 
tall reed, and a kind of. wild sugar-cane. The Sudan 
savana supports a comparatively large population 
engaged in agriculture and^ cattle-breeding. With the 



214 AFRICA 

remarkable wealth of its natural resources it bids fair 
to become one of the most prosperous parts of Africa : 
situated between the desert and the high forest, which 
are both avoided by man, it attracts the whole human 
and animal population. The conflicts arising out of 
differences between the nomadic and the settled, the 
pastoral and the agricultural, tribes have long retarded 
the development of the Sudan, and given a chequered 
history of spells of prosperity followed by periods of 
decay. 

Futa-Jallon. A narrow strip of elevated tableland, 
the watershed between the Niger and Guinea, from 
which the West African rivers arise, is crowned with 
broken granitic peaks and heights, 3,500 to 4,500 feet 
in altitude. These broken plateaus, bounded on the 
north by the Sudanese bush and on the south by 
the high forest of Guinea, display dreary and treeless 
vistas of monotonous grass-lands : the carpet of meagre 
and short grass, about one foot high, is interspersed 
with Labiatae, Scrophulariaceae, Convolvulaceae, and 
Compositae : the medium-sized trees, gathered in 
sheltered situations, are of a deciduous, temperate type : 
in short, the landscape reminds one strongly of the 
European scenery and atmosphere. The treelessness of 
those plateaus appears to be due to a wholesale destruc- 
tion of the forests rather than to any influence of climate 
or soil. The sunk valleys are more prosperous, and 
harbour patches of tropical forest on their slopes, while 
the bottoms are covered with gigantic grasses, 9 to 
10 feet high. 

Egyptian Sudan. This region, which continues south- 
ward the great Libyan desert and extends across the 
middle course of the Nile up to the foot of the Abyssinian 
plateau, skirting the latter southward to Lake Rudolph, 



EGYPTIAN SUDAN 



215 



shows an improvement on the semi-desert margin, and 
marks a step towards the more prosperous savana con- 
ditions, for the rainy season may be fairly depended upon. 
The vegetation is uniform, and characterized throughout 
by a large development of thorn woods (cf. p. 213). 

In the north one still meets with large stretches of 
desert land, especially on the plateaus, while in the 
broad depressions, forests of doum-palms, gummy aderas, 



^'? i p i l ?,Vv; l ii K 













FIG. 82. In the drier Scrubland of the Egyptian Sudan. 

balanites, &c., predominate with grassy tracts; but 
thickets of thorny Nubian and other acacias, and 
scrub, 3 to 5 feet high, of deciduous, tiny-leaved bushes, 
become a distinctive feature. As it penetrates farther 
south, the scrubby and thorny vegetation grows more 
continuous, closer, and taller. The landscape is now a 
mosaic of thin, shadeless woods of gnarled acacias which 
expand in umbrella shapes, ^nd in many ways recall our 



216 



AFRICA 



orchard trees in winter. There may be a bushy and 
woody undergrowth, but generally the stony ground is 
bare under and between the scattered trees. Meagre 
steppes of dry and wiry bunch-grass alternate with 
knee-high scrub, now open, now fairly close. The 
thornbush vegetation of this region may be compared 
to that of the sertao in the north-eastern part of the 
Brazilian highlands. Extensive tracts among the wood- 
and scrub-lands are covered with peculiar grass formations 




FIG. S3. Floating Blocks of Sudd. 

which suggest meagre and patchy cornfields on a stony 
soil, and constitute a specific feature of those regions. 

The lower portion of the district, in the immediate 
vicinity of the Nile and under its beneficial influence, 
shows already something of the luxuriance of grass of 
the savana. The river flows between banks adorned 
with groves of palms and other tall trees ; but behind 
that fringe and occasional strips of savana, commence the 
leafless, thorny scrub and woodland. The river forms 
vast swamps bristling with tall reeds, papyri, sedges, 



EGYPTIAN SUDAN 217 

canes and rushes, and cloaked with sudd, which may 
so cover the marshes as to seem like a regular growth, 
which completely hides the waters and assumes the 
appearance of our meadows, A fishing population of 
most peculiar habits lives amid those swamps. On the 
savana and the other poor steppes, as well as in portions 
of the scrub area, a certain number of cattle can be 
supported, for the nature of the country compels pastoral 
activities. Agriculture is confined to the vicinity of the 




Fu*. Si. The Desert near Rogel. 

rivers and to the higher lands which receive a somewhat 
more generous rainfall. The woodlands are of no special 
economic value, but they supply an abundance of fuel 
for the steamboats which ply on the Nile ; hence they 
are rapidly becoming exhausted. 

Abyssinia is an enormous block of lofty tableland, 
topped by still loftier ranges and peaks, and broken 
by deep and narrow gorges. While it attracts the 
summer monsoon rains from across the equator, it is 
yet so severely drained and wind-swept that the effect 



218 



AFRICA 



of the abundant rainfall is partly lost. Varying with 
the altitude, its climate ranges from dry and hot 
conditions of the Sudan and the Red Sea to the cool- 
ness of northern lands. In addition to this, an unequal 
distribution of rainfall and an extreme diversity oi 
the drainage due to variations of the relief and of ex- 
posure, and the nature of the ground combine in render- 




FIG. 85. Coffee Plantation British East Africa. 

ing the plant cover strikingly varied; indeed the 
landscape of Abyssinia may be regarded as a summary 
of most of the vegetations of Africa. The most charac- 
teristic and extensive formation is the meagre treeless 
steppe of the wind-swept plateaus, which is, however; 
interrupted on the arid rocky sides of the gorges by 
patches of thorny brush or thin sprinklings of acacias 
and low leafless trees. Pr6sperous park landscapes 



ABYSSINIA 219 



strongly recalling those of Europe are not wanting in 
favoured positions on the upper levels. Orchard-like 
woodlands, dotted with candelabra euphorbias, groves 
of tall deciduous trees, mountains clad with forests 
of gigantic juniper and podocarpus, and possessing an 
undergrowth of mediterranean tree-heath, vary the 
grassy brushes and scrub. The increase of rainfall 
with elevation determines a corresponding arrangement 
of the vegetation in belts of altitude. Thus the lower 
slopes, like the neighbouring lowlands, support bush 
grass-lands; a taller hillbush follows higher up; on 
the plateaus and upper slopes the park landscape with 
its European-looking deciduous trees and pastures 
becomes predominant: juniper forests are best developed 
between 6,000 and 9,000 feet, on the slopes of the loftier 
mountains. 

The country is mainly pastoral, but agriculture is quite 
possible, is indeed practised everywhere for local require- 
ments, and with primitive methods. Abyssinia is also 
the home of the Arabian coffee-tree, and shelters two 
kinds of wild olive-trees and a great many plants of 
economic interest. 

The mountains of Yemen in Arabia Felix offer a close 
analogy with Abyssinia, the ancient Ethiopia, both as 
regards climate and vegetation, and it is not surprising 
that the population of the latter was partly derived 
from the Arabian Sabeans, who brought with them their 
civilization. Ethiopia was also influenced by Egyptian 
invasions and became an important centre of culture. 

Abyssino-Eritrean Foot-hills. The land gradually 
rises from the low and arid Somali plains towards the 
Ethiopian highlands in a series of broken terraces which 
form a hilly landscape. This is carried towards the east 
up to Cape Guardafui by an irregular line of low 



220 AFRICA 



mountains, and is continued by the hilly ranges which join 
the Eritrean coast with the northern part of Abyssinia. 
An increase of rainfall during the wet season, a greater 
diversity of soil, and the occurrence of clouds and mists 
in the upper reaches go to make the vegetation of this 
hot belt much more varied than that of Somalilancl 
proper. A large development of the grassy thornbrush 
and acacia scrubs, a wealth of orchard-like woods against 
a background of grass-lands are the specific features 
of this scenery, which, on the whole, repeats that of the 
Brazilian sertao. 

A number of strange plant-forms imparts a peculiar 
character to these dry grass- and scrub-lands. Among 
them, the candelabra euphorbias, the stiff-leaved aloes, 
the compact, low and rounded crowns of the dragon- 
trees, and, strangest of all, the barrel-shaped adenium- 
trees with their bodies swollen and smooth, and their 
crowns of short stout limbs ending in small bunches 
of leaves, arise solitary or in loose clumps on the slopes : 
gum acacias are also abundant. 

In the north of this region the scorched hills of Eritrea 
support forests of balsam-trees, leafless, except for a 
few weeks in the year; shadeless, without grass or 
undergrowth of any kind. Such woods look like copses 
of dead young oak-trees, left standing on naked stony 
wastes. The cloud-belt favours the growth of more 
regular forests of tall junipers, podocarpus and tree- 
heaths interrupted by pastures, identical with those of the 
Abyssinian highlands. It was principally on the slopes 
of this transition belt that the Sabean herbalists found 
the gums, resins, and aromatic products, myrrh and 
frankincense among them, which were the objects of an 
extensive trade in ancient times. 

Yemen* Across the Bed Sea, the hilly margin of 



YEMEN 221 

Arabia repeats very much the same landscape and the 
same vegetation as the symmetrical mass of Ethiopia. 
The raised south-western edge of the great desert 
plateau, which in places exceeds 9,000 feet in elevation, 
attracts the monsoons from the Indian Ocean in the same 
manner as does Abyssinia. Hence, on the middle and 
upper slopes, there is a sufficient rainfall, which is sup- 
plemented by an abundance of clouds and mists and by 
plentiful dews at night. The climate is equable, warm 
temperate to subtropical. The streams have eaten their 
way far up into the tableland and dissected its jagged 
rim into a network of deep valleys ; but on reaching the 
torrid coastal shelf they are swallowed up by the sands, 
or evaporated. Such fortunate conditions convert the 
highlands into an island of abundance amid the sur- 
rounding deserts. 

The vegetation combines the features and profusion 
of the mediterranean and moist subtropical types ; but 
it includes also many characteristic forms of the ad- 
jacent dry lands, thanks to an extreme variety of physical 
conditions. Hence the extraordinary wealth and diver- 
sity of the natural and cultivated resources which gained 
for the Yemen, in ancient times, the name of Arabia 
Felix. It is largely the vegetation of the more arid 
areas, reaching a point of supreme intensity, which 
furnishes the abundance of gums, resins, wax, balsams, 
scents and spices, just as among the foot-hills of Eritrea 
and Ethiopia. The collection of gums, cassia and senna, 
myrrh, frankincense and k&t occupied the ancient Sa- 
beans, and gave rise to one of the most famous trades 
of the remote past. The civilization of the Minoans, 
Sabeans, and Himyarites spread as from a centre to 
Syria, Ethiopia, and Babylonia. 

Somaliland, 'the Horn pf Africa/ is a region inter- 



222 



AFRICA 




E-i 

c 



C 

Cfl 



SOMALILAND 223 

mediate between the Sudan and Arabia. The rain- 
bearing monsoons on their way to the lofty mass of 
Abyssinia pass over this thirsty, sweltering lowland, 
grudging it the benefit of their moisture. Thus the plant 
cover is reduced to a minimum, which renders the 
country very similar to the arid margin of the Sahara. 
A meagre sprinkling of umbrella-acacias and other 
low trees, thorny and leafless, over the bare sandy or 
stony ground is quite, typical of this region. Now 
bushes gather in open scrubs ; now light acacia woods 
mark the tracts of some underground moisture : a 
dotting of stiff grass-bunches or of prickly, leathery, 
strap-leaved plants recalling pineapple bunches, may 
form the scanty undergrowth. Grass is scarce .and bad ; 
pastures mostly temporary and localized. A rich develop- 
ment of thorny plants, a general umbrella shape of the 
tiny- leaved deciduous trees of low woody and bushy 
growth, are, with the strange forms of the candelabra 
euphorbia, species of aloes and water-storing plants, 
specific features of the vegetation. Tamarix, calotropis, 
indigo, salvadora, and other denizens of the semi-desert 
Sudanese belt reappear in Somaliland. It is only in 
the margins of the often waterless river-beds that one 
sees impenetrable thickets of acacias and a stronger 
development of grass : long stretches of the coastland 
are completely destitute of any visible vegetation. Amid 
the scorching semi-deserts, two large rivers arising from 
the Ethiopian highlands form symmetrical replicas of 
the Blue Nile and the Atbfira. Their flood margins 
extend in places over five miles, and long sections of the 
valleys support dense equatorial selvas, marshes, and 
jungles of marvellous exuberance: a presumably true 
picture of primeval Egypt before the secular efforts of 
man brought it under coptrol. A similar effort ha 



224 AFRICA 

apparently been beyond the powers of the Somalis, whose 
thinly scattered tribes continue to tend hungry cattle, 
and to hunt among the rich scrub. 

Light Forests and Parks of Tropical Africa. The 

savana does not pass abruptly to the high tropical 
forest: with the gradual increase of rainfall and the 
appearance of a double wet season, the vegetation slowly 
grows more luxuriant ; patches of woods become at once 
more extensive and more frequent ; while the park aspect 
is emphasized. Yet woodlands do not attain to the height 
and wealth of the equatorial selvas : a good many trees 
still shed their foliage or possess leathery leaves ; and 
lianas and epiphytes, except in the river-forests, are 
comparatively small and scarce. In short, there is a 
distinct belt of transition from the savana to the selva, 
consisting of light kinds of tropical woods mixed with 
grass-lands of the savana type ; but by reason of the 
universal practice of burning the grass yearly in the 
dry period, the savana has, in most cases, been extended 
right to the margin of the selva, and, in many instances, 
has indeed largely encroached upon its limits by the 
destruction of the belt of light woods, which are easily 
set on fire. Cultivation is also responsible for much of 
the damage to the light forests. Thus it is that, in 
tropical Africa, this belt has been largely transformed 
into a savana. Distinct traces of it may be found in 
the hinterland of Upper Guinea (the Ivory and Gold 
Coast, Togo, and Nigeria), on the watersheds of the 
Shari, Bahr-al-Ghazal, and Congo basins ; and the great 
Ituri forest passes to the savana through such a margin 
of light deciduous tropical woods interspersed with 
grass-lands. 

In Upper Guinea, representative growth-forms of the 
selva are present throughouj; this belt. Oil and borassus 



226 AFRICA 

palms form a conspicuous feature, along with ceibas, 
bombax, anogeissus, West African mahoganies, ster- 
culias, fig-trees, chlorophoras, and other large trees : 
wild coffee-trees are abundant. 

On the south of the Congo basin, the Kasai and 
Lualaba rivers, with their tributaries, run across a series 
of terraces leading up to the Zambezi divide. Here 
only the slopes of the valleys, deeply sunk below the 
general level, are clad with forests of the selva type. 
The tablelands are covered with a mixture of light 
woods and grassy glades. 

This transition zone, the most fertile part of Africa, is 
capable of great development. It has the advantage of 
an easy irrigation without the drawbacks of the over- 
whelming forest. Its comparatively old cultivation and 
thick population are proofs of its natural fertility even 
under primitive methods of cultivation. Rice, yams, oil- 
palms, rubber, coffee, cotton, sugar-cane are but a few of 
its most important products. 

West African Coast : Guinea. From the southern 
part of French Guinea to the Gold Coast, the tropical 
rain-forest extends from the shore to the upper valleys 
of the plateaus at the back, and penetrates along these 
gorges far into the savana region. The reason of this 
is the heavy rainfall, exceeding 80 inches and fairly 
continuous throughout the year, coupled with the 
equable heat. 

The low coast-line is sandy and marked by a screen 
of tall coco-nuts and oil-palms. Behind this extend 
freshwater or brackish lagoons, girt with reeds, tall 
grassy jungles, and thin low shore woods. Villages are 
dotted all along the beach, and the natives have cleared 
narrow strips of ground between the sea and the dark 
forest which rises at the back. Frequently this sandy 



WEST AFRICAN COAST : GUINEA 227 

shore is interrupted by tidal swamps, which mark the 
mouths of the rivers and inlets, and bear on their slimy 
surface mangrove forests. Where the hills reach the 
coast-line the rain- forest crowds down almost to the 
shore. The Guinea selva is said to be the densest and 
most luxuriant forest of Africa, and is now becoming 
famous for its wealth in rubber plants. In respect of its 
situation, physical conditions, and density, it is to be 
compared to the Brazilian coast forest on the other side 
of the Atlantic. This remark applies to the forests of 
Lower Guinea and the Loango coast, which extend almost 
continuously from Lagos to the vicinity of the lower 
Congo, and beyond that river, on the seaward slopes of 
the great southern plateau, to Benguella. Mangrove 
swamps are particularly abundant along the Gulf of 
Guinea, covering the low and broad tidal tracts at the 
delta of the Niger, of the Old Calabar, and the mouths 
of the Cameroon. 

The enormous mass of the Cameroon mountain displays 
well-marked belts of vegetation : a lower belt of heavy 
equatorial forests, followed by a zone of dense mountain 
forests, reaches up to 6,000 feet; thence upwards the 
forest gradually dwindles to the size of a high bush and 
becomes increasingly mixed with grass-lands dotted with 
low shrubs. At 8.000 feet the shrubs disappear fast 
and open grass slopes lead to upper moorlands, above 
which the ash-cone towers. Compared with mountains 
in other parts of the inter-tropical world (Mexico, the 
Andes, and even with the Himalayas), the Cameroon 
thus shows an unexpectedly low tree-limit. 

The Gaboon forest appears to continue east of the 
Oguwe and to join the great forests of the Sanga and 
Ubanghi. 

West African Plateaus. t ln West Africa there occur 

Q 2 



228 AFRICA 

a few masses of higher plateaus, the vegetation of which 
differs in many respects from that of the surrounding 
lands. The Futa-Jallon has already been briefly men- 
tioned., Other highlands occur in Togo, in a general 
north and south direction. North and east of the 
Cameroon the extensive tablelands of Adamawa and 
Ngaundere separate the inteiior basin of the Chad from 
the basin of the Gulf of Guinea, and possibly continue 
between the Gaboon and the Congo basins. Here rivers 
flow at the bottom of narrow gorges which harbour 
dense and luxuriant forests of the selva type. The 
hills and plateaus, on the other hand, display a dry kind 
of vegetation, contrasting with the exuberance of the 
Cameroon and Gaboon. There seems to be a recurrence 
of the flora of drier lands, with the acacias and other 
plants of the Sudan : mixed brush-woods of middle-sized 
deciduous trees alternate with grass stretches in a park 
landscape : forests of Combretaceae display in January 
a fresh pale and shimmering verdure ; palms are rare, 
epiphytes and climbers both scanty and small. The 
drier character of these plateaus is possibly due to the 
more complete drainage, and to the winds. Similarly, 
the little known hill- and plateau-land which forms the 
watersheds between the Shari, Ubanghi, and Bahr-al- 
Ghazal basins, appears to have a vegetation different 
from that of the valleys, composed of light woods and 
park-lands, in which the baobab and the borassus palm 
fail. The trees are small or of moderate size, and 
include amongst others the butter- and tallow-tree, 
numerous members of the acacia and mimosa tribes, and 
many other shrub forms with small leaves. 

The plateaus to the north and east of the Cameroon 
are, to a large extent, under prosperous native cultivation. 

The Congo Basin ' is a circular plain-like basin, some 




FIG. 88. Tropical Forest in the Congo State. 



230 AFRICA 

1.500 feet above sea-level, surrounded on all sides by the 
edges of higher plateaus '. It was long described as one 
colossal and unbroken stretch of equatorial rain-forest, 
yet it appears to receive a rainfall that hardly exceeds 
80 inches yearly. Perhaps the impression of boundless 
selva which is recorded in the accounts of more than 
one traveller is due, as on the Amazon, to the fact that 
explorers seldom ventured far from the rivers, thus 
having no opportunity to see the back-country. From 
the edge of the plateau, for hundreds of miles up stream, 
the main waterways are accompanied by wide belts of 
true selva. This is true for the lower Sanga and the 
Ubanghi up to its eastward bend, for the Congo up 
to Stanley Falls, and for the lower Kasai. As in the 
Amazon these broad strips on both sides of the main 
streams are liable to permanent or temporary floods ; and 
on the middle and upper sections of the rivers, the 
selvas confine themselves to narrow fringes. The Congo 
high forests are of the equatorial rain-selva type, like 
the Amazon caaguapu in all its essential vegetative 
features, much as the floras may differ. Oil and borassus 
palms, which were present in the savaria, continue to be 
conspicuous in this region : rubber-trees and lianas are 
found in abundance and heavily exploited. Among 
other interesting trees may be noted the dragon-tree, 
which is well represented in drier regions, the fig-tree, 
rotang palms, ceibas, &c. 

The nature of the vegetation covering the tablelands 
between the rivers has not as yet been satisfactorily 
studied. In the Welle district, beyond the margin forest, 
opens a park landscape of light woods and savanas ; the 
Itiri forest, partly of the rain-forest type, turns to a 
lighter kind towards the east ; and in its middle course 
the Kasai runs also through a variegated scenery of light 



THE CONGO BASIN 231 

woods and grass-lands. Such characteristic denizens of 
the savana as the ceiba, dragon-tree, borassus palm, &c., 
by their recurrence among the inter-river landscapes, 
suggest a similarity of conditions between the two 
physical environments. In the lower districts of the 
Congo, the selva is limited to the shores and the islands : 
savanas become the chief plant formation, corresponding 
with a lower atmospheric humidity. 

Human settlements are scattered along the rivers, 
where, by fishing, hunting, and a minimum of agriculture, 
as well as by the collection of rubber, scanty populations, 
once more prosperous and numerous, eke out the 
meagre living that satisfies them. 

Angola. The northern edge of the high austral 
African plateau curves round the Congo basin. Its 
north-western extremity passes quite close to the lower 
Congo, forming the region known as Angola, which 
possesses a low and narrow coastal shelf. This coastal 
strip is but the northern spur of the south-western desert, 
and its rainfall does not exceed eight inches yearly. 
Consequently its vegetation repeats that of Somaliland 
or Gazaland : meagre and patchy swards of stiff grass, 
with a sprinkling of thorn-bush and stunted trees, where 
the forms of the candelabra euphorbia and the baobab, 
the aloe and the sanseviera are conspicuous. 

On the foot-hills at the back, the thorn-bush thins 
out and soon mingles with jungles of large-leaf ever- 
greens. Climbing up the edge of the plateau, at about 
1,000 feet, one crosses the southern outlier of the West 
African coast forest, comprising high trees and lianas, 
which has been already mentioned. The forest belt 
rapidly decreases in size and profusion, as one approaches 
the brink of the tableland, and after passing through 
a fringe of hill-bush one st^ps into the boundless savanas 



232 



AFRICA 



which cover the whole breadth of the South African 
continent. The coastal hill forest rapidly dwindles to- 
wards Benguella, and is replaced by the jungle and the 
thorn-bush. Rubber and the Guinea palm-oil are the 
best known resources of the rain -forest belt, but cultiva- 
tion, which is here fairly extensive, comprehends many 
tropical products, amongst which coffee, cotton, and 
sugar-cane are the most important. 




FIG. 80. The King of the African Savana. Baobab tree. 

East African Mountain Region. Under this name 
may be included the variegated landscape of terraces, 
escarpments, hills, and mountains which border, and 
lead on to. the South and East African plateau from the- 
eastern coast. It comprises also the rolling and hilly 
land north of the Victoria Nyanza, the broken country 
which skirts the eastern rift t and the hills west and east 




w 
05 



H 

cS 



234 AFRICA 

of the Nyassa, south to the lower Zambezi. The region 
thus defined embraces a manifold scenery: it differs 
alike from the Somali half-desert, from the Bahr-al- 
Ghazal savana, from the Congo forest, from the Zambezi 
savana, and from the drier lowlands of Mozambique: 
yet despite its diverse aspects, from the forest-clad hills 
of the Shire to those of the Upper Nile province, it has 
a certain unity. 

Several factors, such as the varying but generally high 
altitudes, the equatorial and tropical situation, the 
unequal influence of the south-east trade- winds, the 
diversity of the drainage, and the nature of the soil, 
combine to make this region one of the most varied of 
the continent. The background and general theme of 
the picture is always some kind of savana or thorn 
woodland, corresponding to a for the tropics moderate 
rainfall. From this rise light tropical woods and even 
high forests, but by reason of the great elevation of the 
plateau on the west and of the drought nearer the coast, 
the savanas are generally poor, and the deciduous thorn- 
brush or wood of, the caatinga form is the typical vege- 
tation except in the south, where a dotting of acacias 
with the umbrella shape prevails. Thus this part of 
Africa offers a -great similarity to the northern Brazilian 
highlands, and for similar physical reasons. 

As a rule, the eastern and southern slopes possess 
a richer vegetation than those of the west and north, 
most of the rainfall coming from the south-eastern 
trades and monsoons. Light kinds of tropical forests 
do not fail in the hill-land. The best known is the 
Mau forest, large portions of which are only of moderate 
height, 60-70 feet, trees with thin light crowns and thick 
gnarled trunks, and few lianas, few climbers, but a dense 
undergrowth of shrubs and grass : other parts approach 



EAST AFRICAN MOUNTAIN REGION 235 

the exuberant subtropical rain-forest. Hill rain-forests 
occur on most of the mountains, the lower portions often 
assuming the true selva type. Inland valleys are, in 
many instances, extremely dry. In the Athi and Kidwani 
valleys, extensive tracts are thinly studded with um- 
brella-shaped acacias over a meagre carpet of low grass. 
On the other hand, the regular park savana is exemplified 
beautifully in the Masai and Karamoyo plains. 

The belts of altitude can be traced distinctly up the 
four great mountain masses of the Ruwenzori, Elgon, 
Kenya, and Kilima-njaro. On the first-named the 
different zones are the following, with reference to the 
Uganda side : 

* ft. 

Snow ...... 

Tree senecios and shrub lobelias, 

a loose bush up to . 14,200 

Tree-heaths up to . . . 12,000 

Eambu forests up to . . . 10,000 

Tall forests up to . . . 8,700 

Savanna and bush up to . . 6,500 

Two conifers, the tall juniper and the podocarpus, may 
be found in Masailand. 

Towards the south, among the hills, the vegetation 
passes to a more uniform type of deciduous monsoon 
forest, all varieties of which are to be se6n on both 
sides of the Nyassa and in the Shire district, south to 
the lower Zambezi: north-eastern Rhodesia especially 
displays several large belts of them. They reappear 
south of the Zambezi on the hilly terraces of Umtali and 
Barue, south to the Sabi River. 

Populations of hunters, shepherds, and agriculturists 
are naturally intermixed amid- such varied surroundings, 
but, as usual, the hunting and pastoral tribes, being 



236 AFRICA 

more warlike, have established an ascendancy over the 
tillers of the soil. These countries are capable of a 
prosperous development under the influence of the white 
man : the Uganda plateau, especially, offers a vast scope 
on account of its healthy climate. Several animal foes 
such as the tsetse fly and the tick, however, will have 
to be stamped out before a regular settlement is possible. 
The Zambezi basin and Unyamwezi. As far as we 
know, the vast plateau territory which sweeps round 
from Angola to the Great Lakes over the Congo-Zambezi 
divide and most of the Zambezi basin, and beyond Tan- 
ganyika to Victoria Nyanza, offers throughout a fairly 
uniform type of savana repeating, though at a much 
higher elevation, the physical conditions of the Sudan. 
Under the general influence of a characteristic savana 
climate, the nature of the ground and of the relief seems 
to be the determining factor in the distribution of the 
vegetation. A light tropical forest of a leaf-shedding 
type, which in many instances resembles a thin oak 
forest, is the tallest form of it. Besides this, many 
varieties of savana woods occur, now in clumps and 
groves, now even in extensive patches: among them 
may be enumerated : thin copses of deciduous trees with 
straight, slender trunks and flat, spare crowns supported 
by gaunt, twisted limbs ; no undergrowth but grass up 
to three feet high; open clusters of trees of a stouter 
and more bushy growth with clear, round heads and fine 
foliage; jungles and orchards of loose-limbed acacias 
overgrown with tall grass; dottings of umbrella-shaped 
thorn-bushes in the savana with the solitary baobab 
conspicuous in the distance. On drier and more broken, 
basaltic and limestone rocks the grass and woods give 
way to stunted forms of grey thorn scrub relieved by 
shrubby evergreens and wo^cly perennials. Candelabra 




d 

JS 
a 



& 

2 

,2 

i 

Ci 

M 





238 AFRICA 

euphorbias, aloes, and other water-storing or succulent 
plants, are lightly scattered among the rocky scrub. 

Towards the great lakes Tanganyika and Nyassa the 
surface heaves up into a regular hill-land ; the vegetation 
becomes more exuberant and is diversified by light 
forests, and the region passes gradually to the hill forests 
of East Africa. 

Over the vast savana tableland, centres of inland 
drainage, or tracts of doubtful gradient, have developed 
large shallow swamps partly covered by tall reeds, some- 
times girt with light jungles. On one of those swamps, 
peculiar tribes, living entirely on the products of the 
water, lead a primitive existence on floating reed-rafts, 
screened from the whole world which they ignore. 
Hunting in the once thickly stocked savana, cattle- 
grazing, and agriculture are the simple occupations of 
the inhabitants of this region. 

Gazaland and Mozambique. South-east of the hill 
region of east Africa the coastal plains and plateaus 
expand greatly before reaching the edge of the high 
austral African tablelands. They are too low to con- 
dense the moisture of the south-east trade-winds, which 
therefore sweep past them without materially benefiting 
them. Broadly speaking, this is a repetition of the 
conditions obtaining in Somaliland in a lesser degree. 
The vegetation is correspondingly poor and, on the whole, 
similar to that of the latter region, or of the lowland 
of Mossamedes, that is, an open bush of thorn-wood 
with but scant grass of a wiry description. The arid 
landscape is broken by the deltas of the most important 
rivers, especially along the lower courses of the Zambezi 
and Limpopo, where the moist ground supports luxuriant 
tropical evergreen forests, and swamps create around 
them heavy jungles. 



GAZALAND AND MOZAMBIQUE 239 

Boschveld. South of the Zambezi, with increasing 
distance from the equator and an undiminished eleva- 
tion, the tropical savana very gradually turns to a 
subtropical type of park landscape which, under the 
name of 'boschveld', extends into the northern Transvaal. 
With a rainfall of about 20 inches, concentrated in 
summer, this is essentially a grass-land, the low growth 
of which no longer compares with the tall tufts of 
the tropical savana grasses, but consists largely of 
short andropogon and aristida forms. Numerous small 
herbaceous bushes with small leathery leaves, especially 
composites, are freely interspersed among bulbous and 
tuberous plants; there is no longer that variety of 
trees which prevailed within the tropics. Trees are 
mostly bushy, and acacias form the bulk of them, with 
low and flattened crowns as a characteristic feature. 
' They are scattered singly or in groups over the surface 
and their dark foliage contrasts strikingly with the 
lighter green or faded straw-yellow of the sward/ 
Especially noticeable here are the thorny acacia hor- 
rida, and the mopani-tree which alone, or almost alone, 
successfully resists the yearly grass-fires : the majority 
of trees shed their foliage in winter. On granite hills, 
like the Matoppos, the grass plays but a secondary 
part, and the woody perennials and bushy tree-forms 
become more prominent. It is a barer landscape, 
but more varied in forms of vegetation and species 
of plants. 

The boschveld may be compared with the prairies of 
Texas, in which the mesquite would be replaced by the 
acacia and the mopani-tree. It is closely allied in 
appearance and mode of life with the park scenery of 
East Africa, and is primarily a grazing ground. 
Agriculture can only assume the second rank as an 



240 AFRICA 

occupation as it requires a combination of soil and water 
which is realized in but limited areas. 

Hoogeveld. The South African plateau continues in 
an increasing gradient towards its south-eastern edge, 
which is called the Drakenberg. The combined influence 
of winds, drought, and soil has prevented tree-growth, 
and, following upon the boschveld, the hoogeveld 
extends on the south at an elevation of from 4,000 to 
5,500 feet, a vast, level, treeless expanse ; a steppe with 
a short and irregular sward, only to be compared to the 
other vast steppe-regions, the American prairies and the 
Asiatic steppes. Table-like eminences called kopjes rise 
here and there above the general level of the plains, 
a thin sprinkling of stunted bushes on their often steep 
and rocky scarps. Otherwise, not a pebble, not a shrub, 
breaks the monotony of the endless plateaus : trees are 
restricted to the immediate vicinity of the water-courses 
and of human settlements. The dry and cool climate of 
the hoogeveld renders it the healthiest part of Africa. 
The pastures originally supported quantities of wild 
cattle and big game, and the huntsman and the herds- 
man found there abundant occupation. Large numbers 
of cattle, however, could not be grazed permanently on 
the same spot ; hence arose the necessity of shifting the 
pastures and hunting-fields and, partly, of the nomadic 
life led by the white invaders, in their turn. 

Drakenberg. The pastures are carried right over the 
raised edge of the plateau which has been so carved into 
hills as to deserve the name of mountain-range. A 
rain-supply falls upon the Drakenbergs sufficient to 
justify the presence of forests, were not these mountains 
exposed to the full strength of precisely those south- 
easterly blasts .which bring the rain. Thus the beneficial 
effect of the latter is counteracted, as far as tree-growth 



DRAKENBERG 241 

is concerned, by an exaggerated evaporation, and woods of 
a marked deciduous and temperate type are confined to 
the bottom of the valleys. The landscape of the Draken- 
berg is thus one of grassy dales and gorges varied with 
shrubs and perennial herbs, typical pastoral scenery. 

Kalahari. The strength and moisture of the south- 
eastern trade winds are exhausted before the central 
and western portions of South Africa are reached : the 
westerly winter storms, on the other hand, exercise but 
little influence over these portions. Thus the vast regions 
lying to the south of the subtropical boschveld depend 
for their life-stirring moisture mostly on local winds 
and storms, or again on north winds and sea-breezes 
which cool in winter on reaching the high plateau. 
Hence the extension of broad, arid lands, the dry char- 
acter of which goes on increasing from east to west, so 
as to reach a truly desert condition on the Atlantic 
coast. The average rainfall oscillates about four inches, 
but is very irregular from year to year. The Kalahari 
is the largest of those regions and occupies the centre 
of the high tableland. West of the boschveld of 
Rhodesia and Transvaal the trees are gradually more 
scattered and lower, and the grass is thinner and shorter. 
Now table-like tops and vast plains may be seen bare 
and rocky or with a ragged mat of poa grass. Thorn- 
bushes, especially the acacia with its tusk-shaped thorns, 
form loose thickets in the dry beds of the streams, amid 
wiry tufts of dry andropogon and aristida grasses. In 
similar situations the tree euphorbia and the aloe, with 
a small number of low, heath-like, woody trees and 
short sage-bushes are thinly spread over the whole 
area of the Kalahari ; the only portions which are 
really plantless are the valleys or level depressions and 
dry salt pans, for scattered succulents speckle the stony 



242 AFRICA 

scarps. The South African waste land is almost sym- 
metrical with, and analogous to, the Algerian high 
plateaus in point of forms of growth, though perhaps 
not so destitute of trees. 

Damara Desert. A rainless strip along the coast from 
the Cunene to the Orange River, but broadening some- 
what in the middle towards the Namib region, reaches 
purely desert conditions. The sandy strand extending 
inland by means of dunes is plantless, over miles 
and miles. In places may be seen that strangest of 
plant-forms, the welwitschia, a solitary stumpy pigmy- 
tree, buried in the sand, only showing its woody head, 
whence emerges a crown of long tattered ribbons of leaves 
coiling over the ground. Again, on sandy wastes may 
occur here and there an open brush of bushy, leafless, 
fleshy euphorbias. Stony troughs harbour a sprinkling 
of thorn- bush and trees : giraffe acacias, thorny acacias, 
tree euphorbias, &c. Plateaus, chiefly characterized by 
a vegetation of bulbs and tubers, are found farther 
inland. In comparatively wet years the ground is 
covered with the crawling melon plant, acanthosicyos 
horrida, which supplies a most welcome food. In the 
interior, a few grassy depressions afford some temporary 
pastures. 

Karroo Region. The Kalahari is carried across the 
Orange River to a scarcely less monotonous plain, treeless 
and dotted with stunted bushes, though in the moister 
depressions grassy patches are found interspersed with 
shrubs and the ever-present thorny acacia : these 
alternate with heath-like wastes covered with short 
brushes of dwarf shrubs of a dull-green hue. Beyond tho 
edge of the plateau, which is thrown into a mountain- 
like range, one descends to a lower terrace called the 
Karroo. 




Bj 

M 



s 

I 



II 



244 AFRICA 

The Karroos are also treeless waste lands, mostly stony 
and semi-desert, likewise the homes of dwarf rounded 
shrubs, with tiny, heath- like leaves : in some years the 
rainfall may reach the minimum of one inch. A very 
large number of tubers and bulbs is characteristic of 
the Karroos, which are thus divided into deserts of 
bulbs and succulents and deserts of dwarf shrubs, 
and end where continuous grass begins. In the dry 
river-beds is loose scrub of the horrid tusk-thorn 
acacia, the giraffe acacia, the olive-like capparis, a 
sumac, the karreeboom, and a herb with fleshy leaves, 
in addition to numerous pelargoniums and oxalids. 
Few oases occur among those deserts and semi-deserts, 
human settlements are, of necessity, confined to river- 
banks: animal life cannot be plentiful on such a 
meagre fare, and agriculture and grazing are out of the 
question. There remains only the ostrich, the specific 
bird of the desert which is bred for its feathers on 
regular ostrich farms. Natives who have been driven 
there by more powerful tribes and by white men live 
permanently on the verge of starvation and at the 
lowest stage of destitution, and are fast disappearing. 

Southern Belt of South Africa. The Cape Region 
receives the benefit of the winter rains due to the 
westerly winds, and by reason of its position enjoys 
a climate very similar to that of the Mediterranean. 
On that account it exhibits a vegetation which stands in 
close relation to that of extreme North- West Africa: 
a wealth of evergreen, small- and hard-leaf shrubs and 
small trees of spare vegetative habit but profuse 
flowering. Forest growths similar to those of the 
mediterranean oaks and pines have disappeared; the 
woody formations are reduced to the condition of 
maquis, with a small, leathery, and simple foliage, among 



SOUTHERN BELT OF SOUTH AFRICA 245 

which proteas and leucadendron are the best known types. 
A large number of extremely varied shrubs and heath- 
like plants, usually well represented in our conservatories 
under the name of ' Cape heaths ', is characteristic of this 
region. In addition, a diverse flora of bushy perennials, 
of bulbs and succulent plants, which appears like an 




FIG. 93. Silver trees. 

enriched replica of the Mediterranean flora, has furnished 
us with a large collection of ornamental plants, 

This south-western margin of the South African table- 
lands has been so dissected by deep valleys as to fall 
into a hilly scenery in which altitudinal belts are well 
marked. A broken strip of coast and lowlands, which 
receives the minimum of moisture, includes the strand 



246 AFRICA 

and dune formations, among which are remarkable bush- 
lands and shrubby heaths, recalling the Brazilian res- 
tingas. Acacia cyclops, introduced from Australia, has 
spread abundantly, and has materially altered the original 
aspect of the landscape. Characteristic also of this 
coast strip are the numerous representatives of the sedge- 
like order of Restiaceae, which, together with myrtaceous 
shrubs, form well-defined vegetation units on shifting 
sands resting on clay or hard pan. The foot-hills support 
the typical evergreen hard-leaf scrub : along with these 
maquis occur hill heaths akin to the garigues, both of 
which probably replace the destroyed woodlands. With 
increased rainfall, cloud, and mists, the upper mountain 
belt displays, in isolated areas, mountain swamps, rock 
heaths and mountain brushes, the aspect of the whole 
suggesting the bush of the coast strip rather than the 
maquis. A pseudo-alpine low vegetation crowns the 
wind-swept ridges. 

There seems to be no doubt that the Cape region once 
possessed luxuriant forests of the Mediterranean type, and 
that the same process of destruction which gave origin to 
the European maquis largely also transformed these 
forests into mere brushes. The Mediterranean cypress, the 
cedars of the Atlas and Lebanon, find an equivalent in 
the widdringtvnia, so much like the Monterey cypress 
of California, which had formerly a large area of dis- 
tribution. The last few survivors of those stately and 
useful tres are now left at about 2,700 feet, in inacces- 
sible positions on the northern slopes of a remote moun- 
tain range (Cfcdar Mountains). 

Knysha Forest. Almost the only natural timbered 
tract left in South Africa occurs in a narrow and hilly 
atrip along the coast, from Mossel Bay to Algoa Bay. 
The forests are regular, 'tail and dense formations 



KNYSNA FOREST 247 

of various evergreen trees with a glossy foliage, due to 
a rainfall amounting to 36 inches yearly and spread over 
the whole year; epiphytes and climbers abound in 
portions of them, as in the warm temperate rain- forests. 
This timber belt is intermediate between the medi- 
terranean and the subtropical rain-forests. There is 
a remarkable parallel between the central valley of 
Chile with its mediterranean vegetation and the temper- 
ate rain-forest on the south of it, and the sequence of 
the Cape and extreme South African forest region. The 
Knysna forest was more extensive in former days ; its 
area has been greatly reduced by the axe and the fire, and, 
as usual, the early mistakes now cost much money and 
energy to repair. Reafforestation is more difficult 
and more costly than would have been a wise husband- 
ing of the natural resources. 

Kaffraria. Crossing the Drakenberg, one descends 
into Kaffraria. This region consists of a succession of 
broad terraces open to the south-east winds and possesses 
a fairly abundant rainfall, the effect of which is here 
again partly counteracted by the winds. The northern 
and upper parts are covered with a park vegetation of 
a warm temperate type. Woods are not uncommon 
among the northern hills ; but they assume the form of 
dense jungles of slender, twisted, and distorted trees of 
small stature, giving the impression of overgrown elfin 
woods. Upon the mountains are found two conifers, 
podocarpus and widdringtonia. For the most part, 
however, the middle and upper terraces support park 
or bush grass-lands, where acacias, aloes, and proteas 
predominate, and form excellent pasture grounds, not 
unlike those of Texas. Winters are dry and cool, and 
last from May to July. Many bulbous plants, varied 
shrubs, and perennials are found interspersed among the 



248 AFRICA 

grass or in colonies around the trees : the umbrella shape 
is also a feature of the acacias. Thickets of grey, bushy 
euphorbias studded with tall aloes are not rare, while 
the stony hills are strewn with succulents and the 
ever-present aloe form. 

On the lower terraces, at about 1,500 feet, the climate 
changes to a moderately dry and hot subtropical type, 
favourable to the development of subtropical agricul- 
ture: sugar-cane, tobacco, maize, bananas, and other 
fruits may be grown with excellent results. The natural 
vegetation consists mostly of shrubs, thickets, and 
woods of small trees, among which are palms and the 
ornamental, banana-like strelitzia, the tree euphorbias 
and aloes, which latter are found alike among the park- 
steppes and the subtropical brush-woods. A frequent 
type of woodland is that of the caatinga jungles; 
those of a more profuse character occur in the well- 
watered valleys of the south. 

The character of savana is strongly marked on the 
terrace, about 1,500 feet above sea-level, which extends 
between the Drakenberg and the Lebombo range in the 
north of Natal. This hilly district, a transition between 
the bush-steppe and the regular tropical savana, is some- 
times known as the ' nether- veld '; without possessing 
the luxuriance of the savana, it has taller trees and 
grass than the boschveld. 

Three zones of occupation may thus be distinguished 
in Natal: (1) the subtropical coast belt of cane, 
cotton, and fruits, up to 1,500 feet ; (2) the temperate 
agricultural belt with corn and maize ; and (3) the upper 
or exclusively pastoral belt. 

Madagascar. The core of Madagascar is an elongated- 
high plateau occupying the centre of the island, and con- 
tinuing across the sea the tableland of Rhodesia. To- 



MADAGASCAR 



249 



wards the west the sea is reached by a series of step-like 
terraces, while towards the east the plateau sinks pre- 
cipitously to a narrow fringe of marshy coast. 

Situated within the south-eastern Trades belt, Mada- 
gascar is ever moist on the eastern scarp of the tableland, 




Fio. 94. Traveller's trees. 

which consequently is clad with an overwhelming tropical 
rain-forest, descending to a margin of mangrove-swamps. 
The top of the tableland is naturally the continuation 
of the Rhodesian boschveld. The western terraces, on 
the whole, reproduce the condition of the hinterland of 
Beira, and display a similar kind of light tropical wood- 



250 AFRICA 

land interrupted by savanas and thornwoods. In the 
moister depressions, however, the vegetation may attain 
the profusion of the true selva. The extra-tropical 
southern point of the island is very much drier, and 
offers a vegetation not unlike that of the Karroo. 
Long detached from the main mass of the African 
tableland, the block of Madagascar, while retaining 
much of the plant and animal population of the con- 
tinent, has developed many special types of its own, 
which give it a specific character. Among the curious 
plants may be mentioned an obelisk-like pandanus 
and, better known, the banana-like traveller's tree, 
the beautiful ravenala: several rubber-trees are also 
to be found here. 

All agricultural industries of the Tropics find a pro- 
mising field amid the varied conditions of this island. 
The native populations, on the whole, were more ad- 
vanced than the Africans. For a time, attempts at 
colonization were unsuccessful, because the approach 
was made from the unhealthy eastern shore, but recently, 
decided progress has been made by settlers on the 
western and northern sides. 



CHAPTER VI 
EUROPE 

General. In the general land-mass of the northern 
hemisphere, Europe appears like a peninsula grafted on to 
the western side of Asia and advancing into the middle of 
temperate seas. Its geographical situation, its subdued 
relief and the penetrations of inland seas almost to its 
eastern limits ensure for the small continent a great 



252 



EUROPE 



equability and a great uniformity of climate which are 
its dominant features. The climate, on the whole, may be 
described as cool temperate, with a moderate sunshine, 
a moderate rainfall, moderate winds, a moderate atmo- 
spheric moisture, yet with a marked seasonal rhythm. 
Such conditions are the result of the westerly winds 
which sweep across the Atlantic and penetrate far into 




FIG. 06. Mean Annual Rainfall of Europe. 

the Arctic circle. These breezes are not checked, as in 
Pacific North America, by transverse barriers of moun- 
tains, and therefore are able to extend their influence 
to a considerable distance inland. Congruous with the 
climatic conditions, the vegetation exhibits the same 
features of equability and uniformity, finding its expres- 
sion in a fairly continuous 'cover of forests of a cool 



GENERAL 



253 




Fio. 97. Regions of Europe receiving 
more or less than 6 inches of rainfall 
during the summer three months. 



temperate, deciduous, broad-leaf type. Of this character, 
the oak and beech are the foremost representatives. 

In opposition to 
Asia, in every respect 
a land of sharply con- 
trasted extremes, Eu- 
rope shows gentle and 
gradual variations of, 
or departures from, 
a uniform temperate 
average, best exempli- 
fied in the British 
Isles as being nearer 
to the moderating in- 
fluences, i.e. the west- 
erly breezes. Hence 
the greater difficulty 
of characterizing what appear as delicate shades or 
' nuances ' of the vege- 
table carpet, and of 
indicating their geo- 
graphical boundaries. 

As may be expected, 
starting from the At- 
lantic shores and pene- 
trating farther and 
farther into the mass 
of land, Europe may 
be analysed into a 
succession of strips or 
belts of decreasing 
equability and uni- 
formity. The seasonal 
and daily contrasts tend to be emphasized more 




FIG. 98. Regions of Europe receiving 
more or less than 6 inches of rainfall 
during the winter three months. 





FJOS. 99. 



100. Mean Temperature of Europe in January and July, reduced 
to sen-ifVt;!. 



GENERAL 



255 



and more; periods of rainfall and drought are more 
sharply defined, and ranges of temperature, both in 
seasonal averages and in absolute extremes, widen in- 
creasingly. While the Scilly Isles, with their balmy 
atmosphere, and mild winter and summer, express the 
complete moderation of climate in their wealth of broad- 
leaf, luxuriant evergreens, central Russia with a sharp 



Vegetation 

Tundra 
Coniferous fores* 
Deciduous trees 
Mediterranean 
Sbeppe 
Mountain 




FIG. 101. Vegetation of Europe. 

and prolonged winter frost, and a scorching, dry, summer 
heat, instances the opposite extreme in its steppe. In this 
way may be distinguished an Atlantic or oceanic fringe, 
a western European margin, a central European tract, 
-and an eastern European region. 

In respect of heat and cold and of their action on 
vegetation, the western fringes, in conformity with the 




FIG. 102. Clump of Cork Oaks in S. Franco. 



GENERAL 257 

trend of isotherms, stretch in a general meridian direc- 
tion. Farther east, with the weakening influence of 
the westerly breezes, the distribution of warmth tends 
more and more to conform to latitudes : hence a broad 
division into cold, cool temperate, and warm temperate, 
belts which find their expression in the coniferous, the 
broad-leaf deciduous, and the evergreen hard-leaf forests. 
In the northern region the shortness of the vegetative 
period excludes the broad-leaf deciduous, and leaves the 
ground to the spare and gaunt conifers, with their 
enormously reduced and wholly protected green surface, 
ever ready to work when the weather permits, and with 
their store of reserve-matter in the soft wood. In the 
southern or Mediterranean region, the brief duration of the 
period of intense growth and the general unfavourable- 
ness of the greater part of the year, due to winter colds 
or summer droughts, limits the broad-leaf deciduous 
vegetation to abundantly watered areas. The larger 
portion of the land supports a stout, well-protected, non- 
luxuriant type : the woody evergreen with a spare and 
leathery foliage. 

In the northern region, the strip of coast open to the 
Arctic winds is clear of tree-growth and is clothed with 
low brush and moors: this constitutes a distinct belt 
of tundras. The passage from the coniferous to the 
deciduous belt is very gradual and is obscured by the 
influence of soils; but the boundary between the cool 
temperate and the warm temperate regions, i. e. between 
the deciduous and the mediterranean vegetations, is de- 
fined by mountain ranges such as the central plateau of 
France, the Alps and their outspurs in Illyria, and by 
the Rhodope range. 

If differences between the east and the west of Europe 
are observed in the vegetation of the northern coniferous 

1159.1 S 



258 EUROPE 

and southern or Mediterranean regions, they are still 
more apparent in the deciduous zone of central Europe. 
Such distinctions are, of necessity, more subtle than 
between the latitudinal belts of vegetation. They do 
not materially affect the general aspect and composition 
of the large masses of forests, but show themselves in the 
comparative abundance of certain growth-forms and 
plant formations, or again in the varied forms, vegeta- 
tive habits, and modes of life of the same plant species 
in the various districts. 

In the west, the mild winters allow plants to retain 
their foliage longer than in the east; the periodic phe- 
nomena of plant life are not so regular nor so sudden. 
Life is perhaps less exuberant in summer, but the period 
of rest is not so complete and universal. As the advent 
of autumn is more gradual and slow, so the spring re- 
awakening, as a whole, takes place earlier. With the 
weakening of the seasonal rhythm, there is a tendency 
to a prolonged, if less active, growth period, to a sort of 
tender-leaf evergreen of the cool temperate type. In 
this respect western Europe bears some relation to such 
cool-temperate evergreen regions as southern Chile or 
south-western New Zealand and Tasmania. This is 
especially the case for the oceanic fringe of coasts and 
headlands, from Ireland to Spain, where evergreens of 
more or less thin foliage, like the strawberry-tree, the 
cherry laurel, the Portugal laurel, the holly and the 
yew, develop best. In addition, a large number of 
mediterranean leathery -leaf evergreens survive the 
winter and are extensively planted, and'there is a marked 
tendency to the evergreen habit in certain shrubs which, 
in the east, are frankly deciduous. 

The contrast between the east and the west is more 
striking in the grass formations than in the forests and 



GENERAL 259 

shrubs. In eastern Europe, outside tho lush meadows 
of the rich alluvial valleys and the subalpine and alpine 
regions, the grass tracts are, as a rule, of the dry and 
spare type of the steppe with narrow, hard, and wiry 
leaves. To the climate of western Europe are due the 
extensive evergreen carpets of succulent grass with thin, 
broad leaves, which 'reach their characteristic develop- 
ment in the British Isles. At a short distance from the 
Atlantic shore of the continent the grass begins to turn 
yellow-grey and to wither in winter and in the height 
of summer. The meadows, common to eastern and 
western Europe, are determined, as a rule, by the abun- 
dance of water in the rich soil. Thus the geographical 
significance of the two types of grass carpets in the 
west and in the east is entirely different. The dissimi- 
larity of appearance, requirements, and habits connotes 
a fundamental divergence of physical environment. Also 
indicative of uniformly cool and rainy climates, and to 
be found extensively in western Europe as well as in the 
nor^h, are the high moors or peat-bogs which occur on 
badly drained soils and in impure waters, and disappear 
gradually eastward. The heather moors, characteristic 
of poor soils, are again plentiful in the west and in 
northern Germany, but fail in the east. 

In Europe the relations between vegetation and its 
physical environment are obscured, as in China or India, 
by the removal of the primitive plant-covering and the 
alterations undergone by the soil, and even the climate, in 
the course of centuries. The well-kept woodlands of 
these countries * bear but a distant relation to the 
primeval wildernesses of forest, undrained, strewn with 
mires and swamps, packed with a thick undergrowth, 
encumbered with dead trunks and stumps, littered with 
decaying branches, and padded with mosses and ferns, 

8*3 



GENERAL 261 

Such forests only allowed settlements on the margins of 
the valley meadows, and made even the barbarians pause 
and go round. 

The areas of grass pastures, heather moors, and peat 
bogs have been changed and generally extended and the 
surface altered beyond recognition. Some portions have 
been drained, others submerged, others again irrigated 
or put beyond the reach of floods. Most parts have 
been cleared of timber, many given up to cattle and 
sheep, many again burned yearly, whilst a large area has 
been claimed by cultivation. Similarly the composition of 
forests, bushes, and grasslands has been altered, by fire or 
by grazing. A large extent of waste and derelict land 
has been created, whose variable and heterogeneous plant 
carpet, drawn from the adjacent formations, strives for 
some kind of organization and balance. Numberless 
species of plants have been imported by man, sometimes 
competing successfully with the original denizens. Ulti- 
mately, it is apparent that by altering the equilibrium of 
the animal world, destroying many species and intro- 
ducing others, the nature of the plant carpet has been 
indirectly but powerfully affected. It is therefore diffi- 
cult to do more than briefly to indicate the more obvious 
correspondences between the vegetation and its regional 
environment. 

In the middle of the deciduous belt various subalpine 
heights form insulated areas of conifers. On the 
Pyrenees, the Alps and the Carpathians, the coniferous 
districts enclose cores of alpine vegetation. 

The Arctic Region. The most unfavourable conditions 
offered to plant and animal life are found in the ice and 
snow-fields of the arctic and alpine regions. An intense 
frost and darkness during nearly a half of the year, 
alternations of frostbound earth and icy water during the 



262 EUROPE 

remainder, such are the conditions to which organisms 
must adapt themselves. Yet even the hostility of such 
an environment has not proved too much for the powers 
of endurance of plant and animal life. Seventy-two plant 
species, in addition to many species of animals, are able 
to live and reproduce on snow and ice. They are reduced 
to the most elementary forms, hardly more than drops of 




FIG. 104. Snow-bound Tundra 

living matter finding their powers of resistance in the 
nature of their own substance rather than in adventi- 
tious means of protection, for of external devices such as 
higher forms of life are able to evolve, there appear to be 
few or none. Living things are reduced to a powdering 
of tiny cells penetrating the snow to a depth of one or 
two inches. The bright colours, rose, red, purple and 



THE ARCTIC EEGION 268 

brown, assumed by the algae are ascribed to the pro- 
duction of substances apparently destined to absorb heat, 
and sanction the names of red, brown, yellow and green 
snows given to colonies of such hardy organisms. 

Arctic-Alpine Tundras and Pjcld*. Arctic condi- 
tions such as make tree-growth, and even shrub-growth, 
impossible are only found in Europe along a narrow strip 
of coast facing the polar seas. This is due to the com- 
paratively low latitudes of the northern shores and to the 
moderating influence of the south-westerly winds which 
penetrate far into the Arctic Circle. The immediate shores 
of the frozen sea, deprived of the benefit of those winds 
by the lofty barrier of the Scandinavian Alps, and bearing 
the full onslaught of the circumpolar winds, alone possess 
a climate severe enough to preclude the extension of the 
hardy northern trees and shrubs. 

The most telling features of the arctic climate are the 
shortness of the vegetative period, which is reduced to 
two or three months in the year, not so much by the long 
winter night as by the freezing of the ground and the 
icy and drying winds. Those features are reflected by 
the usual characteristics of the tundra belt : the absence 
of arboreal vegetation ; the shortness of growth in length 
df the shoots and internodes ; the consequent crowded 
foliage close to the ground ; the strong development of 
the underground root-stock, woody or fibrous, which 
serves as a store of reserve materials ; the thick, com- 
pact, and leathery nature of the foliage, and its re- 
duction in size; the frequent provision of a woolly 
covering on the leaves ; the vivid colours of herbaceous 
shoots due to the presence of heat-storing substances; 
the bright coloration of the blossoms associated with the 
duration of the long summer day ; and a wealth of finer 
devices both superficial and internal. The tundra also 



264 EUROPE 

shelters a small number of tiny and tender annuals 
which accomplish their life-cycle, from seed to seed, in 
the space of a few weeks. 

Rock, rubble, and parched clay floors in exposed 
situations, destitute of snow in winter, offer the scantiest 
vegetation. It may be a coat of crust-lichens or a sparse 
dotting of pigmy undershrubs and perennial herbs ; often, 
however, the ground is left bare. These ultimate ex- 
pressions of plant-life under most unfavourable circum- 
stances penetrate farthest north and are the pioneers of 
the higher plant- world. 

Vast carpets of slwubby lichens, interspersed with 
crawling junipers, dwarf berry-bushes, and other creep- 
ing under-shrubs ; in comparatively quiet and sheltered 
surroundings even low shrub-heaths ; marshes of reeds, 
rushes, sedges, cotton-grass and coarse grass growing on 
the silt of the margins of the streams ; beautiful oases or 
bloom-mats on the southern slopes of hillocks at right 
angles to the rays of the low sun, all aglow with gor- 
geous flowers; these form the more luxuriant aspects of 
the tundra. 

The European tundra is characterized by an abundant 
development of moss-heaths or moss-swamps, dreary 
moors formed by vast accumulations of half-decomposed 
peat-moss remains in the shape of gigantic, spongy, 
rounded cushions and mounds, sometimes from 10 to 18 
feet high, with a labyrinth of intervening puddles or 
gutters, choked with snow in winter and submerged in 
summer. Mosses are particularly fitted to withstand the 
dry conditions obtaining on these peat hillocks on account 
of their capacity of drying up and reviving again rapidly 
under moisture, and of their hardy nature. The nearest 
approximation we have to moss-tundras is the peat-bog, 
common in Ireland and Scotland ; but the formation of 



ARCTIC-ALPINE TUNDRAS AND FJELDS 265 

peat in the Arctic region is not so rapid, extensive, and 
perfect as in milder countries, chiefly by reason of the 
shortness of the vegetative season. Moreover, the peat- 
moss, or sphagnum, and the ling, so common among 
our tracts of peat-bogs, fail in the Arctic. The moss- 
tundra disappears, going farther north, and is character- 
istic only of the subarctic district. 

In the tundra the gastronomic resources are reduced 
to their minimum. A scanty supply of berries, a meagre 
soup of reindeer-lichen, a few roots, and an occasional 
salad of cochlearia are all that can be expected. For- 
tunately the reindeer, besides its hardiness and its unique 
aptitude to cross the moors by reason of its broad hoofs, 
exhibits a remarkable faculty for turning lichens into 
food. Hence it becomes a most valuable asset for the 
natives who are obliged to leave it to find its own fodder, 
while they wander after the half- wild herds, and depend 
largely on the milk, skin, horns, bones, and flesh, for 
a living. 

Physical conditions very similar to those of the tundra 
extend far south on the ridges of the Urals and the 
summits of the Scandinavian Highlands, the ultimate 
outliers of which may be encountered in the broad table 
tops of the Scottish Highlands. Despite the now regu- 
lar alternation of day and night, the vegetation of these 
arctic-alpine plateaus possesses, on the whole, the same 
features. The name 'fjelds' connotes, in Scandinavia, 
this type of physical and plant scenery. Above the last 
birches which here, as on the polar side, form the upper 
Jimit of the forests, occurs a grassy brush of low under- 
shrubs, with small and leathery-leaved dwarf junipers 
and birches, crowberries, cranberries, &c., often over 
a carpet of mosses and lichens. Beyond 4,000 feet this 
is succeeded by a close mat or rug of yellow-grey shrubby 



266 



EUROPE 



lichens, and higher up again they are more and more 
interrupted by plantless rubble screes which ascend to 
the snow-line. 

Northern Europe. The region of vast forests of 
conifers includes most of Scandinavia, and Russia north 




FIG. 105. View in Southern Norway the typical 
northern forest of Europe. 

of a line extending from the head of the Gulf of Finland 
towards the mouth of the Vyatka, The exclusion of 
summer-green broad-leaved forests seems to be deter- 
mined largely by the shortness of the vegetative season 
as marked by the correlative duration of continuous 
frost which here averages five months. Of rainfall there 



NORTHERN EUROPE 267 

is a sufficiency throughout the year and the atmosphere 
remains fairly moist, chiefly, perhaps, by reason of the 
low temperatures generally prevailing. The biting, dry 
arctic winds become here more moderate, and there is an 
abundance of snow on the ground in winter ; but the 
uncertainties of the early and late growing period limit 
still more the actual time available for the develop- 
ment and work of the broad leaves, whilst the night 
frosts, which occur at the beginning and towards the 
close of the period of growth, endanger their very exist- 
ence. Ultimately there is hardly time enough for the 
maturing of the fruits of the temperate vegetation as 
we know it in central and western Europe. As climatic 
conditions become more severe, the number of tall trees 
able to withstand them is necessarily much reduced. 
Hence the uniformity of northern forests, where, contrary 
to what occurs in warmer latitudes, a single species, or 
two or three species, may prevail exclusively over exten- 
sive tracts of country. 

The chief timber species are, in the western districts of 
Scandinavia, the Norway spruce, the European larch, 
and the Scots pine, to which in the eastern part of 
northern Russia, east of the Ladoga and Onega lakes, 
the Siberian spruce and fir, the Siberian larch and the 
Siberian stone pine are added. Thus as we go eastward 
the variety of coniferous forms increases. The spruce 
generally thrives best in moist situations and on heavy 
soils, while the pine and the larch are not so particular 
in their requirements, though they do not grow so well 
in damp surroundings. Among the very few hardy 
summer-green trees that accompany the conifers in these 
northern regions are the white birch, the aspen, and the 
rowan. Indeed, a stunted form of birch constitutes low 
woodlands in a broken belt north of the limit of conifers : 



268 EUROPE 

alders may occur in river thickets. Under the heavy 
canopy of dense spruce forests, the persistent semi-dark- 
ness tolerates on the mat of dead needles but occasional 
carpets of mosses and lichens, while the lighter cover 
of the pines and larches admits of the existence of a 
uniform brush of low woody and straggling bushes with 
inconspicuous flowers and small, leathery leaves, and of 
low, herbaceous ferns. There are no lianas ; even 
climbers are rare and small, and epiphytes are reduced 
to mosses, lichens, and an occasional fern. 

Though forests occupy the largest portion of the land, 
especially in Russia, a considerable space is claimed by 
other forms of vegetation ; on the margins of the rivers 
are different kinds of meadows and moors ; on alluvial 
silt flats, reed-, sedge- and rush-marshes ; on wet grounds, 
thickets of willows, alders, &c. Depressions and badly 
drained areas are the seat of extensive peat-bogs or high 
moors : indeed, it is in damp and cool northern Europe 
that the greatest accumulations of peat are found. Not 
infrequently, waste lands, either natural or artificial, are 
covered by moors of low shrubs, similar to our heather- 
moors, with an abundance of berry bushes, heather, and 
bracken. 

Only a very few kinds of small -leaved trees, and those 
extremely hardy, represent the deciduous components of 
such forests. Fair-sized willows are chiefly restricted to 
damp and sheltered situations: those growing in the 
open are stunted and often straggling. Large-leaved 
herbs are limited to meadows and are chiefly perennial, 
probably by reason of the shortness of the growing 
period : annuals are rather scarce and small : tubers and 
bulbs are rare. The food resources of the forests, moors, 
and morasses are limited to a few berries and roots; 
large fruits cannot withstand the raw and chilly climate, 



270 EUROPE 

and have no time for maturing. Of cereals, only oats, 
rye, and barley can be grown in a few favoured spots : 
the potato is grown locally. The soil of the northern 
region, largely of glacial origin, is poor and cold, and 
therefore unsuited for agriculture. 

The population being reduced, outside mining, to the 
industries connected with hunting, fishing, lumbering, 
and transport, is, of necessity, very scarce, but also very 
hardy and industrious. In some parts, as in Finland 
and Sweden, the meadows, which occupy clearings in the 
vast forests, support a flourishing dairy industry. In 
Norway, pastoral activities are limited by the steepness 
of the mountain sides, and the impossibility of utilizing 
them for cattle or sheep. 

Russian Steppe. Forest growth ceases altogether and 
gives way to the steppe or dry grass-land when the 
annual rainfall is below 20 inches, and there is a coid and 
dry winter and a hot summer. The conditions which ac- 
company and largely determine the appearance of this 
new landscape are now well known : a scarcity of rain- 
fall and atmospheric moisture ; a fairly abundant precipi- 
tation in spring ; a period of growth limited, on the one 
hand, by two to four months of frosty weather and, on 
the other, by two months of excessive heat ; in winter 
as well as summer, a dry atmosphere. Such circum^ 
stances, if they allow a low vegetation of grass and herbs, 
are not favourable to tree growth ; but to the direct 
climatic influences must undoubtedly be added the re- 
sultant conditions of the ground. 

The Russian steppe is the westernmost extension o 
that vast belt which crosses Asia between the northern 
forests and the central deserts. It covers low, level, or 
gently undulating plains, in which the main, if not the 
sole, diversity is afforded by the succession of the seasons. 



RUSSIAN STEPPE 271 

The steppe may be formed upon various soils, such as 
sand, loess, and clay, but the chief feature of South 
Russia is a deep and fertile cover of fine loam, formed 
by the accumulation of dead and decomposed vegetable 
matter, known as ' black earth* or chernozyom. The 
conditions of the soil, its porosity, depth, fineness, chemi- 
cal and physical nature, and its proportion of organic 
matter, control the various details of appearance and 
composition of the steppe. The main part of the vege- 
tation consists of short tufts of grass which very seldom 
form a continuous sward like that of our lawns or 
meadows. Those grasses have generally narrow, stiff, 
dull green or bluish leaves, wiry, curled or rolled in 
along the edges. On the black earth, sheep-grasses and 
koeleria predominate: on less generous soils, feather 
or thyrsa-grasses spread a silvery sheen in early 
summer. Among these tufts of grass, however, numerous 
kinds of low herbs, short-lived annuals, perennials 
with stronger tap-roots, bulbs and tubers, and even 
under-shrubs, cropping up at various times of the year, 
are profusely interspersed, their abundance being deter- 
mined entirely by local conditions of soil and drainage. 

After the dreary winter, the first awakening is 
announced by a magnificent blossoming of bulbs and 
tubers, among which are fritillaries, garlics, squills, 
gageas, tulips, irises, pheasant's-eyes, and corydalis. 
Early summer, with its changing skies, exhibits equally 
glorious sights, such as boundless fields of blue flax, red 
poppies, clovers, nonsuch, milk-vetch, yarrow, hedge- 
mustard, and many others. With the coming of the hot 
weather, under dazzling skies and a scorching sun, when 
the overheated atmosphere is all aglow with fantastic 
visions, mirages, and fata morgana, all delicate plants 
die out. The glamour of spring vanishes, and a grey, 



272 EUROPE 

yellowish tint invades the whole landscape, which 
assumes the aspect known as the * burydn '. Now 
only stronger plants, one to one and a half feet high, 
can withstand the drought, such as various kinds of 
spreading thistles, wormwoods, and knapweeds, among 
which the flowers of the spikenards, larkspurs, eryngos, 
echinopses, and mallows can hardly throw a little bright- 
ness; but even these wither under the continuous 
drought. Dead stalks, flower halms and straw turn 
a darker and darker grey, and at the outset of the bad 
weather, the vast silent plain appears uniformly dead. 
In the sunk valleys, below the broad levels and in the 
depressions of the rolling downs, patches or fringes of 
river woods present the familiar aspect of broad-leaved, 
summer-green, temperate trees : poplars and willows are 
the dominant notes of such oases. 

The steppe is the typical pasture land and supports 
large herds of cattle and horses, to which are added 
sheep and goats. Under irrigation, however, the * black 
earth ' has proved to be of immense fertility, and pastures 
have slowly retreated before the cornfields and the sugar- 
beet, much as in the case of the Argentine Pampa and 
South Australia. The chernozyom reaches the foot of the 
Caucasus down to the Caspian Sea; but the steppes 
around the Black and the Caspian seas, on sand, loess, 
or clay, are not so fertile and retain their pastoral life. 
Around the Caspian Sea, especially, the soil is mostly 
salt and the grass steppe gives way to the vermuth or 
wormwood brushes similar to the ' sage-brush ' of western 
North America. These brushes form arid wastes whose 
scattered, silver-grey or hoary bushes, two feet high, 
showing the bare soil between them, impart a dull 
appearance to the whole scenery. Even in May, the 
uniform dark-grey tone is not brightened by the gorgeous 



RUSSIAN STEPPE 273 

colours of the steppe. Other salt bushes accompany the 
wormwood, but often large tracts are left entirely 
lifeless. The steppe extends on the west to the foot of 
the Carpathians and stretches north to the forest-belt. 
On the indented edge of it, the deciduous forests consist 
almost entirely of oaks, with a rich scrubby undergrowth : 
in many places, the hornbeam forms an irregular belt of 
dense thickets crowded with thin, slender trees. 

Hungary. Like the Russian steppe, Hungary is 
a region where the moderate rainfall, the dry and cold 
winter, the dry and hot late summer, the strong winds, 
and the prevalent dryness of the air are unfavourable to 
tree growth. The climate of this broad depression is 
one of extremes, owing to its central situation in 
Europe, as well as to the circle of lofty mountain-ranges 
which shut out most of the external modifying influences. 
In mid-summer, the leaves of the trees and shrubs wither 
in consequence of the great heat, drought, and consequent 
evaporation ; the crops turn yellow prematurely, and 
grass completely withers in the meadows. Hungary is 
thus an outlier of the great steppe, whose climate, and 
conditions of plant-life it largely shares, though in a less 
accentuated form. On the margins of the rivers, the 
usual river-woods, reed- and sedge-swamps and flood 
meadows are found. The steppe, called here 'puszta', 
and covered with waving feather-grass or close, tall tufts 
of golden-beard grass, is, in places, dry enough to give 
rise to sand-dunes often covered with low, dense, greyish- 
green swards of dry grasses. Salt tracts are frequent, 
especially in the* eastern portion, and are distinguished, 
according to local conditions, by salt meadows, i. e. dense, 
low mats of perennial herbs, or by salt steppes showing 
scattered tufts of blue-green waxy herbs or undershrubs. 
In places, the appearance of these salt depressions, dotted 

1161.1 



274 EUROPE 

with a meagre sprinkling of succulent salt-bushes, is 
almost identical with that of the Algerian shotts. On 
the edge of the steppe are to be seen frequently de- 
ciduous scrubs of thorny or prickly bushes, not unlike 
the common blackthorn or the juniper. These establish 
a transition to the forests of oaks which surround the 
grass-lands. 

Apart from its pastures on which especially fine horses 
are bred, the Hungarian plain has been largely laid under 
cultivation and is noted as one of the granaries of the 
world. The dry, sunny hills, covered by a rich carpet of 
feather-grass, have been utilized for vine-growing and 
yield a famous wine (Tokay). The lowlands and foot- 
hills which encircle the puszta display the characteristic 
vegetation of central Europe. The oak forests which 
partly clothe them offer the same types as our own, but 
in a much greater wealth of species and a larger variety 
of forms. They are mixed with forests of black pine, 
with lush meadows and other varied formations. Be- 
hind this belt of lowland and forehills rise the wooded 
highlands of the Alps and Carpathians. 

Balkan Peninsula. North of the Rhodope range the 
Balkan lands offer a type of climate and vegetation 
intermediate between those of the Mediterranean, central 
Europe, and the steppe ; indeed the three types of plants 
of the steppe, the Mediterranean, and the cold temperate 
forests struggle here for predominance. 

The broad, low valleys, especially that of the Danube, 
display much of the steppe character. Apart from the 
river- woods and lower swamps, the steppe still largely 
clothes the plains, intermixed, now with flood meadows, 
now with dry sand prairies. The natural pastures deter- 
mine the occupation of the inhabitants, but the mo.re 
fertile parts offer a scope for the growing of hemp, beet- 



BALKAN PENINSULA 



275 



root, and various other vegetables. Forests are deficient 
in the lowlands and on the lower hills up to 1,500 feet. 
Clumps of mixed deciduous woods, dominated by the 
manna ash, represent the tree vegetation. Among the 
lower uplands and foot-hills, cultivation includes the 
vine, tomatoes, sugar- and water-melons, and southern 
fruit-trees such as peach, apricot, almond, and mulberry. 




IMG. 107. Characteristic vegetation Serbia. 

About 1,600 feet above sea-level, broad-leaved, summer- 
green trees, mostly oaks, intermixed with black pines, 
walnuts, &c., begin to close in regular forests of some 
extent. Maize and wheat, tobacco, apple, plum, and 
walnut are grown in this belt, which reaches up to 
3,600 feet. 

Among the highlands proper, the vegetation of oaks 
and black pines gives way to true mountain forests dis- 
tinguished, as in central Em-ope, by heavy mixed masses 

T 2 



276 EUROPE 

of beeches and fir trees ; and interspersed with mountain 
pastures, meadows, and moors. Conifers form the upper 
tree belt and are followed by a strip of elfin woods 
of dwarf pines and other shrubs. The usual alpine 
carpets commence at 6,500 feet and extend to the summit. 

Caucasia. The region comprised between the Black 
Sea and the Caspian, and between the steppes of Russia 
and those of Persia, is extremely diversified alike in its 
relief, climate, and vegetation. Thrown as a steep and 
lofty barrier athwart the path of the south-west winds 
which sweep across the Black Sea, the Caucasus range 
causes a heavy precipitation, which in the west reaches 
over 80 inches yearly, and gradually dwindles to 20 
inches towards the east. This rainfall is spread with 
a fair regularity throughout the year. At the same 
time the conditions of temperature, at least in the lower 
parts, are warm or temperate with a mild winter. Cauca- 
sia has a climate analogous to that of .western-central 
China, especially in the mountain district, or again to that 
of the southernmost Appalachians. 

Such ideal circumstances make the Caucasus essentially 
a land of heavy and dense forests contrasting sharply 
with the surrounding arid areas. The development of 
warm temperate evergreen rain-forests is opposed by the 
temperature minima of the winter and the scarcity of rain 
in the autumn. For these reasons and owing to the well- 
defined seasonal rhythm, the forests remain of the broad- 
leaved summer-green type, like those of the northern 
slopes of the Elburz. The centre of the greatest luxuri- 
ance is to be found in western Caucasia, 1 in a lower belt* 
along the eastern shore of the Black Sea. Europe 
possesses no region of richer profusion than the ancient 
Colchis, well known from earliest times for its in- 
describable beauty. Another distinctive feature of its 



CAUCASIA 277 

forests, and one which denotes at once a more generous 
climate and a less troubled history than those of western 
Europe, is the variety of forest trees and shrubs. With 
the several kinds of oaks, hornbeams, plane trees, chest- 
nuts, walnuts, lime-trees, beeches, maples, horse chestnuts, 
cherry trees, cherry laurels, with an admixture of several 
Mediterranean representatives such as the laurel, fig- 
tree, and sumac, of varied conifers such as pines, firs, 
and spruces, and their wealth of beautiful shrubs, vines, 
and climbers, the west Caucasian forests, often impene- 
trable, avoid the monotony of those of western Europe 
and, to a certain extent, recall the conditions prevailing 
over the south-western part of the continent prior to the 
onset of the Ice Age. 

Rising towards the central range, one notices the dis- 
appearance, one by one, of the more delicate species of 
trees and shrubs and the gradual change to the more 
monotonous aspect of our western forests, until conifers 
alone remain; but there is ample compensation in the 
development of exuberant meadows with grass 6 to 7 
feet high. They are packed with many tall and strong 
herbs of broad and delicate foliage and profuse flowering. 
Above the conifers, at 6,500 feet, extends a belt of shrubs, 
richly blossomed rhododendrons, cotoneasters, &c., which 
lead up to the shorter-set but scarcely less beautiful 
alpine meadows and pastures, abundantly watered by the 
snow-fed torrents and the mists. 

Quite different is the scenery of the eastern half of the 
range, which is much drier, and where woods play quite 
A secondary part. The northern slopes, even in the west, 
are more uniformly, less profusely, wooded. The broad- 
leaved forests are mainly composed of oaks with an 
undergrowth of hazel, for conifers do not extend over 
the eastern portion of the range : indeed, woods seem to 



278 EUROPE 

be mostly of local occurrence on the Caspian slopes. 
They are replaced by thickets of a thorny bush, the 
poliurus, which form a sort of maquis. 

The little Caucasus, south of the Kur valley, and the 
complex ranges of northern Armenia share only to a 
limited extent in the luxuriance of the western Caucasus : 
what remains of their forests is of a mixed deciduous 
and coniferous type, more or less scattered and with but 
a scanty undergrowth. The Caspian valleys are increas- 
ingly dry towards their mouths and largely deforested, 
and the steppe penetrates far into them ; but agriculture 
is carried on, even in the lowlands of the Kur valley. 
This region, being situated on a natural route from the 
east to the west, and sheltering many vanquished races 
in the fastnesses of its rugged and difficult mountains, 
has suffered greatly from the wars and petty struggles 
that have gone on for centuries, with the result that 
many of its forests have entirely disappeared: while 
the agricultural populations made inroads on them from 
below, the pastoral population of the plateau and upper 
slopes destroyed them from above. As on the Mediter- 
ranean, the forests have been reduced often to loose and 
dry wood-, brush- and shrublands. 

The hilly nature of the Crimean peninsula affords it 
the full advantage of the moisture of the Black Sea 
winds and makes it, in respect of vegetation as well as of 
climate, an outlier of the Caucasian region, in the middle 
of the steppe. 

Mediterranean. The region of warm temperate cli- 
mate, with a mild and rainy winter anil a hot and drjt 
summer, is fairly well defined, geographically, round the 
shores of the Mediterranean by a barrier of mountains and 
highlands: the Pyrenees, the central plateau of France, the 
Alps, and the Rhodope range. On the east the Mediter- 



MEDITERRANEAN 



279 



ranean region is bounded by the Anatolian plateau, the 
Taurus, and the Syrian desert : on the south it embraces 
broken strips of the north African headlands such as 
the coast of Cyrena'ica, a coastal strip of Tunis, and 
the Tell of Algeria and Morocco north of the Atlas. 




FIG. 108. Olive grove S. France. 

On such a vast and diversified area the climate 
naturally changes in its details, but remains fairly con- 
Btant in its typical ieatures. The mean average tempera- 
ture for the year ranges from 60 to 70 F., and the annual 
rainfall is generally over 20 inches : there are three or 
four months of dry and hot weather, and the winter is 
comparatively mild and rainy. These conditions favour 



280 EUROPE 

the growth of a vegetation consisting mostly of forests, 
wood- and shrublands characterized by a small-leaved, 
leathery, evergreen foliage ; by an apparent exaggeration 
of the woody and fibrous portions; by a rather low stature 
of the trees ; a general dull-green or bluish colour ; the 
development of thorns and prickles, resins, wax, and 
essential oils, and other devices chiefly directed against 
excessive transpiration. Bulbs, tubers, and rootstocks 
are characteristic of this region : perennials are richly 
varied and often assume a woody, shrubby form. The 
forests do not, as a rule, attain great density, luxuri- 
ance, or height ; lianas are wanting ; vines are usually 
fibrous and wiry climbers ; the undergrowth of shrubby 
evergreens is abundant, sometimes impassable. The 
most common forests are those of ilex-oak, cork-oak, 
stone-pine, Aleppo and black pines, firs, cypress and 
cedar. Frequently deciduous forests occur where the 
ground moisture allows it : oaks, manna-ash, plane-trees, 
&c., are the components. 

When the forests are destroyed there springs up in 
their place dense scrub, 5-10 feet high, of mixed ever- 
green and deciduous shrubs, many of which composed the 
undergrowth of the original woods. On limestone grounds 
the scrub is generally drier and more scattered, chiefly 
limited to bushy evergreens, and is called the ' garique ' 
in France. There are many varieties of such rocky heaths 
and low thin woodlands and brushes. Laurels, olive, 
fig, dwarf palms, locust-bean or carob-trees, and several 
others may form locally mixed or pure woods or thickets. 
The elm and its relative the celtis. the plane-tree, the tere-* 
binth and the Judas-tree, are also characteristic, but ar,e 
mostly solitary. Of shrubs and smaller trees there occurs 
a bewildering variety: among the best known are the 
myrtle, rosemary, cistus, lentiscus, tree-heath, dwarf -oak, 



282 EUROPE 

laurustinus, oleander, and many others. Agriculture 
affords here most varied resources : wheat, maize, and 
rice, cotton and tobacco, lucerne and carob, orange and 
lemon, almond and fig, walnut and chestnut, grape 
and olive ; the number of ornamental plants, trees, 
shrubs, undershrubs, perennials, and bulbs is even 
larger. 

Typical Mediterranean vegetation generally extends 
up the slopes of the surrounding highlands to about 
2,800 feet above sea-level. It is succeeded by a belt of 
mixed summer-green woodlands, among which oaks play 
a prominent part, while the cedar is a notable type in 
the south-west and in the east (Atlas, Lebanon, and 
Taurus). 

The destruction of forests in this region is even more 
complete and extensive than in central and western 
Europe, and has been attended by more serious conse- 
quences by disturbing the water-supply, exposing and 
clearing away the soil, reducing whole mountain sides 
to the bare, rocky core: the whole region has been 
impoverished thereby and in places entirely ruined. 
Among those countries which have suffered severely, 
because the rainfall is scantier, Spain may be mentioned. 
Over a great portion of its surface the yearly precipita- 
tion does not reach 20 inches: the forests having been 
all but wiped out, the sierras have been converted into 
stony and rocky wastes: rain-water, instead of being 
retained and distributed regularly by the vegetation 
of the highlands, is allowed to rush away, unchecked, 
to the sea, so that the rivers are either dried up or in, 
flood, and agriculture, except in the irrigated lowlands 
or huertas of Andalusia, Murcia, and Valencia, &c., is 
rendered rather precarious. Spain is further remarkable 
for its arid esparto grass-lands, which recall the Algerian 



MEDITERRANEAN 283 

alfa plateau. Such areas correspond to a rainfall below 
16 inches. The most important are found in the Ebro 
valley, in La Mancha, and on the south-east coast. The 
high c Meseta ' plateau, another centre of low rainfall, 
is equally arid and treeless. 

Illjrian Karat. The Highlands of Illyria, Albania, 
and Greece separate the Mediterranean from central 
Europe. A series of limestone ranges, rising sharply 
from the Adriatic and shaping its eastern shore, run in 
a general north-west to south-east direction, forming 
many longitudinal terraces and scarps, deep valleys, lofty 
plains, stony depressions and rugged highlands ; they 
sink gradually to the north-east into the hilly lowlands 
of the Save and Danube. Here the prevalence of lime- 
stone rock entirely controls the nature of the relief and 
largely that of the vegetation. The rock is full of cracks, 
fissures, caverns, and holes of all sizes, through which 
rain-water sinks too rapidly, leaving the surface dry. 
When torrential downpours sweep across the country, the 
overflow comes rushing down the steep slopes, washing 
away the loose soil and depositing it over the closed 
plains or ' poljes '. Scarcity of soil naturally renders 
vegetation both stunted and scattered, and confines it 
largely to valleys and terraces. These conditions of 
sheer slope, porous rock, and scanty soil, resulting from 
the soluble nature of the limestone, impart to the vege- 
tation a much drier aspect than it would possess other- 
wise. According to the elevation three climatic zones 
may be distinguished : a lower or Mediterranean, a mid- 
dle area whose'climate corresponds to that of the low- 
lands of central Europe, and a higher mountain belt 
corresponding to the Alps. As features of this region 
are to be counted the bora and the sirocco : the former 
a dry icy blast sweeping down, in winter, from the snow- 



284 EUROPE 

clad summits and doing great harm to early vegetation ; 
the latter, which blows from the south and west, pro- 
ducing, from October to December, mighty downpours 
which soon sink down through the honeycombed rock, 
choke the narrow gorges, flood the holes and closed 
plains, wash down the soil and humus, and work more 
harm than good. This specific aspect of the limestone 
country, with its fantastic rugged relief, fissured rock, 
lack of water and soil, and the arid appearance of its 
vegetation, is connoted by the local name of ' Karst ', 
which applies to the western and southern portion of 
this region. 

The most typical part of the Karst is the lower or 
Mediterranean belt, with its rainless scorching summer 
and its moderately rainy winter. Rugged cliffs and 
sheer slopes, with narrow ledges and terraces; stony 
wastes with pits and larger holes called * dolina ' ; the 
whole seamed with precipitous gorges; desolate high- 
lands and isolated depressions turning into temporary 
lakes, form its characteristic features. The woodlands, 
which at one time undoubtedly covered a large portion 
of it, having been recklessly destroyed, the slopes were 
almost entirely denuded of their soil, and the maquis and 
garigues have taken possession of the ground. They 
sometimes form impenetrable thickets wherein dwarf 
oaks, myrtle, laurel, strawberry-tree, tree- and other 
heaths, lentiscs, sumacs, terebinth, Spanish broom, lau- 
rustinus, oleander, paliurus, and numerous other hard- 
leaf shrubs, undershrubs, and perennials abound. Often, 
however, the plants can only form a scattered growth ort 
rock-heath, and large stony tracts are left almost bare. 

The coastal shelves, alluvia and isles have partly 
retained forests of black and Aleppo pines with an 
undergrowth of hard-leaf evergreens on the rocky ground. 



m 




286 



EUROPE 



Other alluvial parts are quite fertile when drained, but 
swampy when not. Above 1,500-2,000 feet the typical 
leathery-leaf vegetation gradually gives way to a sum- 
mer-green landscape which covers most of the hill-lands, 
depressions, and slopes up to 3,800 feet. This is the 
temperate oak belt which, wrapping round the ranges of 
high mountains, reappears on their eastern and northern 




Fio. 111. Limestone slopes on the Adriatic. 

sides and spreads over the uplands draining to the Save 
and Danube, and the middle valleys draining to the Aegean 
Sea. Great havoc has been wrought among these de- 
ciduous oak forests on the Mediterranean slopes, bu/> 
extensive timber areas still persist on the Danube side, 
The karst-forest includes, beside oaks, characteristic 
forms such as the manna-ash, various kinds of maples, 
and hornbeams; it is frequently replaced by scrub, 



1LLYRIAN KARST 287 

heaths, waste lands and rough pastures of feather-grass 
and andropogon or golden-beard grass. Not seldom even 
bush and thirsty grass-lands disappear entirely : the soil 
is washed away and nothing is left but deserts of naked 
rock. The upper zone is better preserved and exhibits 
stately forests of mixed beeches and conifers of great 
beauty and a rich variety of plant forms. Interspersed 
among the forests and spreading into an alpine zone are 
to be found extensive and lush meadows and pastures : 
these are best represented on the outcrops of older rocks 
which form the core and summits of many of the inland 
mountain ranges. 

Fo Valley. Well enclosed on all sides but one by 
mountains and lying very low and level, receiving there- 
fore but a scanty rainfall, and having as a consequence 
a rather extreme climate, the big alluvial plain of north 
Italy possesses conditions of soil and climate which dif- 
ferentiate it at once from neighbouring Mediterranean 
lands, but liken it to the Hungarian puszta and to the 
Rumanian and Russian steppe. 

What appearance the virgin alluvium originally pre- 
sented, it is difficult to say after so many centuries of culti- 
vation and alteration. Certain it is that it does not bear 
the stamp of the typical Mediterranean vegetation ; that 
it owes its great fertility to the abundant irrigation pro- 
duced by a network of rivers and canals, and presents 
a striking similarity to the plain of the Ganges. Its 
actual tree-growth is largely of the broad-leaved, sum- 
mer-green type, either planted or in river-woods. It 
seems probable* that besides flood-meadows and marshes, 
dry grass-lands with a steppe character once played an 
important part in the natural landscape, but of these 
few traces are left: for these reasons the plain of the 
Fo stands apart as a geographical unit* 



288 EUROPE 

Central Europe. Under this name may be described 
the region which includes the southern portion of Scandi- 
navia, Denmark, and the bulk of the land east of the 
lower Rhine valley, of the Vosges and Jura, and north 
of the Alps : it stretches eastward in the shape of a 
wedge, between the northern belt of conifers and the 
Russian steppes, to the Urals. 

From the Atlantic coast eastward the rainfall de- 
creases, while the contrast between winter and summer 
temperatures increases. The trend of the winter iso- 
therms lies in a north and south direction, and the 
lines of equal duration of frosty weather are similarly 
directed : for instance, the isotherm of 32 F. for January, 
which marks the northern limit of average winter tem- 
perature above freezing-point, runs from the west coast 
of Denmark and Norway a very few points east of south 
down to Trieste. Most of central Europe possesses over 
two months of lasting frosts, but summers are warm 
and the vegetative period is long and sufficiently damp, 
the yearly amount of precipitation exceeding 20 inches. 

Those are ideal conditions for a dense forest growth of 
a cool, temperate type, and it is well known that most of 
central Europe was at one time heavily wooded. Deci- 
duous trees with broad leaves are best adapted to this 
kind of climate, and they occur in overwhelming majority; 
yet the northern conifers are not excluded. Forests are 
of a mixed type like those of eastern North America or 
of Manchuria. Taking the broad lines of the respective 
distribution of conifers and deciduous trees, the former 
are characteristic of the upper slopes of the highlands, i. e^ 
of a climate analogous to that of northern Europe : their 
occurrence in the lowlands,, and under milder conditions, 
generally marks outcrops of poor and dry soils, mostly 
due to glacial or subglacial deposits, or again to a spon- 



CENTRAL EUROPE 289 

taneous or artificial deterioration of the soil. Again, the 
interference of man, mostly by cutting or burning forests 
for mining, smelting, for agriculture, or cattle and sheep 
raising, has entirely altered the original covering, and 
resulted in a complete disturbance of the natural state of 
affairs. Thus different kinds of forest have replaced 
each other or again have given way to pastures, moors 
or waste lands. 

Among the predominant forest constituents, the oak 
and the beech stand foremost and sometimes form nearly 
pure communities. The beech especially succeeds in 
shutting out all competitors, much as the spruce does. 
The oak constitutes more open covers and tolerates the 
growth of other subordinate trees. The sweet chestnut, 
the birch, the ash, the hornbeam may also flourish 
almost exclusively in special circumstances and over 
tracts of lesser extent than the oak and the beech. 
Other still less social trees, which occur scattered or in 
small clumps, are the maple, the aspen, the rowan, elms 
and lime-trees, the gean (or wild cherry), willows, poplars, 
&c. The shrubs and smaller trees of the undergrowth are 
also deciduous. The temperate forests vary greatly in 
the amount of undergrowth which their leaf canopy 
allows. The heavier types like the beech forests, 
when most strongly developed, exclude all underwood 
except a few mould-loving species, like the lily of the 
valley, Solomon's seal, herb Paris, certain orchids, wild 
hyacinths, anemones, primroses, woodsorrel, woodrush, 
woodruff, or again ferns and patches of mosses. 
The clearings generally harbour a large number of 
shrubs, perennial and annual herbs, and even bulbs 
and tubers. 

The fairly regular distribution of the rainfall through- 
out the year, the absence of excessively dry winds, and 



290 EUROPE 

the moderate humidity of the atmosphere in central 
Europe also favour the local development of close grass 
and herb carpets of the succulent meadow type, non- 
fibrous, tall and profuse ; and also, according to circum- 
stances, of shorter pastures presenting drier, less luxuri- 
ant types leading to the dry steppe grass-lands. In 
places, the contest between forest and meadow, tree and 
grass, is keen and, beside local conditions, man's in- 
fluence has often turned the scale in favour of pasture, 
seldom of forest. From a comparison of virgin soils in 
eastern Asia and America, it seems that originally the 
best for the transformation of such combinations of 
meadows and woods, sometimes called wood-meadows, 
into a park scenery, are rich alluvial plains. Pastures 
also exhibit a great variety, not only in their com- 
position but in their adaptations and modes of life, 
depending entirely on local circumstances: greatly 
resembling the steppe, for instance, are certain short and 
meagre tracts of dry, stunted grasses, carpeting lime- 
stone rocks over a thin coat of soil. 

Leaf-shedding shrubs sometimes constitute lasting 
communities in the form of thickets, e.g. hornbeam or 
hazel-nut copses on sunny limestone hills, or again 
willow and alder thickets in river marshes; but these 
are of local occurrence. More important are the heather 
moors of various kinds which occupy large portions of 
poor soil areas in north-west Germany, in Denmark and 
Scandinavia. Again, peat-bogs or high-moors, especially 
in the northern portion of this region, and in the moun- 
tains, develop in badly drained localities. Marshes ar/j 
frequent and varied. 

It should be kept in mind that the relations between 
the natural physical environment and the vegetation have 
been infinitely complicated by the intervention of man. 



CENTRAL EUROPE 291 

Quito apart from spontaneous causes, it is now fairly 
certain that a large extent of such peat bogs covers the 
former sites of forests. A considerable portion of the 
North German heather moors has taken the place of 
forests of conifers: the manifold varieties of pastures 
have similarly replaced other vegetable coverings : again 
cultivation has extended over former timber grounds or 
natural meadows, or over former swamps. Doubtless 
the later or secondary developments of the original 
plant cover and the uses to which it was put by man 
were largely determined by the double influence of 
climate and soil ; yet even the nature of both has been 
so profoundly altered in the process of utilization that it 
becomes increasingly difficult to unravel the tangle of 
actions and reactions which have been at play. 

Western Europe climatically is distinguished from 
central Europe by its milder winters, during which frosts 
are only temporary ; by a somewhat greater and more 
regularly distributed rainfall ; by cloudier skies, and 
a moister atmosphere. The vegetative period is thus 
longer than in central and eastern Europe, while the 
summer is also somewhat milder than farther east. It 
is generally a region of subdued features, large plains 
and gentle uplands, and for these reasons the vegeta- 
tion lacks the variety which obtains in central Europe. 
Most of England belongs to this region. It is essentially 
a land of oak and beech forests and of green pastures 
and meadows. Conifers are remarkably lacking, except 
the Scots pine in Britain, the common juniper, and the 
,yew. They have been introduced extensively, but 
never constitute, in the wild state, pure or mixed forests. 
The westernmost coniferous forests are to be found on 
the line of the Venns, the Vosges, Jura, and western 
Alps, on the central plateau of France, and on the 

tf 2 



292 



EUROPE 



Pyrenees, barring the woods of maritime pine on the 
south-west shores of France. 

The greater portion of the forests have been cleared 
for cultivation and grazing. They include mostly mixed 




FIG. 112. Arundcl Beeches. 



deciduous types, of which the beech and the oak. are the 
chief constituents, and sometimes form pure woods. 
River woods or marsh woods consist of poplars, willows, 
birches, ashes, rowans, alders, berry-bearing alders, 



WESTERN EUROPE 293 

with a great development of large-leaved herbs and 
climbers. In England, the Scots pine generally marks 
poorer and drier grounds, such as sand or gravel or moors. 
There are few shrub formations. The thickets of sloe 
or sea-buckthorn on rocks or sandhills, or brushes of 
gorse and broom are well known ; and on dry limestone 
hills, with a thin layer of soil, may be found copses 
of hornbeam, blackthorn, juniper, bramble, brier, hazel- 
nut, dogwood, hawthorn, guelder-rose, either mixed or in 
separate colonies, over a carpet of sheep's grass. Amongst 
lower brushes may be counted the heather, usually asso- 
ciated with sand or peaty or other poor grounds devoid 
of lime ; or, again, succulent salt-bush brushes in salt 
marshes near the sea. Herbaceous vegetations offer a 
fairly large variety, from the tall reed-swamps, the rush-, 
sedge-, and meadow-marshes, to the regular meadows 
and pastures of different kinds. Under the name of 
moors may be included grass moors, heather moors, or 
mixtures of both ; or, again, brushes or brakes and other 
more or less indefinite waste herbage. The peat bogs 
formed by the accumulation of dead remains of several 
kinds of mosses, chiefly of the sphagnum-moss, do not 
occur so plentifully in this region as farther north, 
in the belt of coniferous forests. A more frequent form 
of marsh is the meadow-marsh or low moor in which the 
water is moderately rich in lime and characterized by 
rushes, reeds, sedges, and coarse grasses. 4 

The largest areas of peat bogs are to be found in an 
intermediate zone between western and central Europe 
tm glacial, ill-d&ined soils, in the north of Holland, the 
western German plain, and Denmark. Low marshes pre- 
dominate in the fenlands and the corresponding tracts 
of polders in Flanders and Holland. Heather moors are 
often associated with peat moors. 



294 EUROPE 

Western Europe was probably less extensively and 
densely forested than central Europe. An abundance of 
rich grass of the succulent type was and still is 
a feature permitted by the moderate and uniform climate : 
wood meadows and valley meadows are combined with 
timber in a pleasant park landscape. There was more 
ground directly available for the rude implements of the 
early agriculturist and more room for his cattle ; indeed, 
in the course of history, the mild climate, the bountiful 
alluvial plains, and the lush grass of the graceful wolds 
exercised almost as great an attraction for the eastern 
invaders emerging from the sombre central European 
forests as the Mediterranean itself. 

South of this region rises the central plateau of France, 
which in respect of climate and scenery, as well as of 
vegetation, bears a great resemblance to the highlands of 
England and Scotland. 

Atlantic fringe. The most temperate region of 
western Europe is naturally found on the oceanic fringe, 
open directly to the moderating influence of the south- 
erly, south-westerly, and westerly winds. This fringe 
includes a narrow coastal strip of south-west Ireland 
and England extending eastward to the Isle of Wight, 
and in France wraps round the point of Britanny. It 
covers also a widening strip south of the Gironde to the 
Pyrenees, th.e seaward slopes of the Cantabrian and 
Asturian barrier, and the coast ranges of Spain and 
Portugal down to Lisbon. 

In this region of narrow climatic ranges and weak 
seasonal rhythm, plants have a greater freedom && 
regards the times of passing through the periodical 
stages of their annual growth, which are performed 
more in accordance with the particular bent of each 
species or even of each individual: the setting in of 




FIG. 113. Pine Wood Surrey. 



296 EUROPE 

the autumnal rest, as well as the reawakening in spring, 
are spread over longer periods; the leafy stage is also 
somewhat prolonged. Hence, the whole plant world 
gives an impression of evergreenness, and in many cases 
there is a real tendency thereto. This is especially 
noticeable with the lawns and pastures, which preserve 
throughout the winter an ever- fresh appearance, but 
it is not lacking among the shrubs of the undergrowth, 
such as the privet. 

The same mildness of winter accounts for the luxuri- 
ant growth and abundance of such native evergreens 
as the holly, the strawberry tree, and the yew, with 
their comparatively tender leaves. It also explains 
the enormous development of such imported evergreens 
as the cherry laurel and Portugal laurel, the rhododen- 
drons, ancubas, privets, euonymus, and even camellias and 
aralias, while in sheltered corners it permits the exis- 
tence in the open of some of the hardier palms. At the 
same time a large number of hard-leaf evergreens of the 
Mediterranean are able to vegetate throughout the 
winter, assuming, in most cases, the broader and thinner 
foliage and the general aspect of tender-leaved evergreens. 
Among those which are most commonly seen in our 
gardens may be mentioned the laurel, the holm oak, and 
the laurustinus. Southern conifers may be thoroughly 
acclimatized in favourable spots: even such plants 
as the fuchsias, camellias, and some profuse types of 
delicate magnolias, intimately associated with thoroughly 
temperate climates, display the same exuberance of foli- 
age and blossom as in their native home. 

As regards plant societies, the oceanic fringe of Europe 
has developed few characteristics of its own and does 
not differ from western Europe. It is important also to 
mention that, strange as it may appear in view of the 



ATLANTIC FRINGE 297 

enormous cultivation of bulbs in this country, the bulb 
and tuber are not characteristic features of the vege- 
tation of mild oceanic climates. Such forms, so ob- 
viously adjusted in respect of their stores of reserve 
materials in bulbs, tubers, or strong rootstocks, to long 
periods of rest through drought or cold and to a short 
period of aerial growth, are rather test plants of arid, 
semi-arid, steppe or mediterranean climates. They are 
particularly well developed in, and quite characteristic 
of, regions like the South African Karroos, the Peruvian 
semi-deserts, the Asiatic and Russian steppes, and the 
Mediterranean. They decrease alike in number, variety, 
and size, from the south-east to the north-west of 
Europe. On oceanic and sub-oceanic margins they con- 
fine themselves, or are possibly confined by competition 
of other plant forms in the wild state, to very special 
environments such as rich pastures, meadows and 
marshes, certain kinds of forest moulds, rocks, &c., 
where but a short growth period is available. The fact 
of their extensive cultivation illustrates their great 
adaptability and the early reawakening of nature on 
the oceanic fringe. 

Britain. Several aspects of the vegetation of Britain 
have already been mentioned : the Scottish and English 
highlands were associated with the Scandinavian Alps 
as part of the North European region of conifers and 
birches, and the south-western or Atlantic fringe was 
connected with the broken fragments of a similar belt 
in France and Spain. The bulk of the country belongs 
jmdoubtedly to.the western region of the cool-temperate 
deciduous belt? from which it differs in no essential 
respect. The landscape is typically that of western 
Europe, viz. an undulating park, where pastures and 
meadows predominate over the cultivated area, dotted 



298 



EUROPE 



with small patches of forest, mostly of oak and beech 
and other mixed deciduous trees, maple and ash being 
the chief subordinate species. 

Of the vast forests which undoubtedly once covered 
a large portion of the land there remains less than 
in most continental countries; indeed, except in some 
remote parts of Scotland and Wales it is doubtful whether 



, , i - ^ i r x, n*ffi : ^% ,- - r i *r " ' i> k^ ,; J ^ 

|^ : S^^l^i 




FIG. 114. A forest clearing planted with rye and bordered 
with elms. 

there remains any genuine vestige. The existing woods 
have all been planted. 

Above the plains and lower hills rise the uplands and 
highlands, which have also been entirely denuded ,o 
their original covering, and whose actual vegetation con- 
sists of moorlands and hill pastures. It is possible to 
trace four main zones of altitude: the lowest zone is 
that of the beechwoods and lowland oak woods; the 



BRITAIN 299 

oak rises higher than the beech, and with the help of the 
Scots pine constitutes a second belt of deciduous forests 
poorer than those of the lower reaches and lowlands; 
the forest intermingles with hill pastures in a third zone, 
and moorlands constitute the fourth. Curiously enough, 
this order is the reverse of that prevailing among central 
European mountains where beech forests mixed with 
conifers occur above the oaks and mark the upper belt 
of summer-green, broad-leaf forests; but it is in ac- 
cordance with the order of succession prevailing among 
the Scandinavian mountains and also with the extension 
of the beech and oak in latitude, when the beech stops 
nearer south than the oak. In this respect, therefore, 
the British highlands are related rather with the 
northern mountains than with those of central Europe. 

Above the oak belt, at altitudes ranging from 700 to 
900 feet, the conifers remain in almost exclusive posses- 
sion of the ground to an elevation reaching, in places, 
over 2,000 feet ; they are accompanied by the birch, and 
both form the tree-limit. The actual woods, however, 
are extremely few and scattered. Moorlands, peatbogs, 
and various kinds of hill pastures occupy nearly the 
whole of the surface, while alpine pastures, moors, and 
wastes occur above the coniferous or subalpine belt. 
The British mountains lack the larch, the Norway spruce, 
the silver fir, the arolla, and mountain pine. They 
show only the Scots pine, and, as subordinate species, 
the yew and juniper. Similar deficiencies are noticeable 
among the broad-leaf trees and shrubs, not to mention 
J&HKibler plants % *which, once introduced, thrive and spread 
just as well as in their native countries. An early 
separation from Scandinavia and from the Continent 
before Britain was fully stocked with European plants, 
appears to be responsible for the absence of a number of 



300 



EUROPE 



timber- trees and shrubs which diversify the continental 
mountains, and generally for the poverty of plant forms. 
In the lowlands, the Scots pine usually marks the 
occurrence of dry, poor soils such as gravel and sand, 
or again moor-lands ; with it generally appears the 
heather, forming low heaths, which may be taken as 
connoting infertile soils, either cold and devoid of lime, 
or sandy and porous. 



IG. 115. Turf-cutting on an Ins 




The extension of moors in the plains is similarly con- 
nected with poor glacial soils in Scotland and Ireland. 
The wet moors, also called high moors or peat bogs, 
originate in ill-drained areas supplied with pure siliceous 
water. They are due to the enormous Me velopmer/^-Jf 
several kinds of mosses, chiefly of sphagnum or peat- 
moss, whose dead remains putrefy under unfavourable 
conditions, namely, an excess of moisture and lack of 
air : a similar result is produced by other plants, mainly 



BRITAIN 301 

sedges and cotton-grass. Heather is usually associated 
with this kind of vegetation, which is extensively de- 
veloped in the west and north of Britain and on the 
uplands and highlands : heavy and impervious infertile 
glacial clays are particularly favourable to their forma- 
tion. In many cases the peat has taken the place of 
forests, as is shown by the remains of trees found buried 
in the high moors. 

Another kind of moor, characteristic of the lowlands, 
is the fen, low, or meadow-moor which usually takes 
the form of reed (rush or sedge) or grass marsh. It 
is frequently associated with alluvial tracts, in process of 
formation, undrained, and provided with water rich in 
lime or organic deposits, such as the ' fens ' or ' carses ', 
which are represented across the Channel by the ' moeres ' 
and ' polders' of Flanders and Holland. When they are 
drained and cultivated, the peat decomposes into a rich 
black earth which is especially suitable for market 
gardening. 

The older rocks, which form so large a proportion of 
the uplands and highlands of Britain are, on the whole, 
of an infertile nature. This, added to the uncertainty 
of the weather and the difficulties of cultivation, renders 
them more suitable for pastures. It was largely the 
nature of the soil which determined the fate of the hills, 
after they were cleared of their timber, the poorer soils 
rapidly developing moors, dry grass-moors, heath-moors, 
&c., the better kinds giving rise to pastures. Among 
the best for pastures, under the moist and equable 
climate of Britain, may be mentioned the limestone soils 
of*Tbrkshire, Sutherland, &c. 



CHAPTER VII 
CONCLUSION 

THOUGH the foregoing account only deals with the 
broad features of the natural regions of the world in 
a bird's-eye view, it will be at once apparent that the 
plant-covering does not consist of a mosaic of entirely 
dissimilar parts, but, on the contrary, that it offers 
obvious similarities and relations, a number of which 
have been mentioned in the course of the descriptions. 
Thus the vegetation of the mediterranean scenery all 
over the world is singularly alike, whether the Mediter- 
ranean of the old world, California, the central valley of 
Chile, the south-west corner of Africa, or the south-west 
corner of Australia, be considered. When their indi- 
genous vegetable products are placed side by side in 
a conservatory, it is difficult to trace them back to 
different regions. 

Similarly the equatorial forests all over the tropical 
belt, though composed of entirely different species, can 
hardly be told one from the other, and the landscapes 
of the lower Amazon, of the lower Orinoco, of many parts 
of the Upper Guinea coast, Borneo, or New Guinea, or 
again of the big Indo-Chinese deltas, are strikingly 
alike. The list of these obvious correspondences or 
4 analogies ' will easily be made from the foregoing 
short sketches, and should now be Attempted as a 
necessary exercise. ' 

Nature, however, attains her ends by various means, 
and shows herself infinitely diverse. To apparently 
identical conditions of climate and soil, plants may be 



CONCLUSION 303 

adapted in many different ways: various plant com- 
munities, like plant-forms, may be adjusted with equal 
efficiency to similar environments. The result is a certain 
difficulty in bracketing together regions which from the 
physical data at present available we may presume are 
enjoying similar conditions, though the appearance of the 
vegetation either in plant-forms or in communities may 
be different. The evergreen, cool, temperate forests of the 
Magellan and south Chilian coast region, and the moist 
coniferous forests of the coast of British Columbia, are 
a case in point; again, the Argentine pampa and the 
North-American prairie ; or, again, the eucalyptus park- 
landscapes of the hinterland of eastern Australia and 
the campos park-landscapes of the subtropical Brazilian 
highlands. In many cases uncertainty arises simply 
from the scarcity of reliable observations. In others, 
however, the dissimilarity of plant-forms really conceals 
a combination of different means making for an equivalent 
adjustment to similar conditions. Only the study of the 
modes of life and of the deeper-seated internal adapta- 
tions discloses the identity of purpose and final adjust- 
ment, the true homology of the plant-forms and com- 
munities. 

It should also be borne in mind that the present plant 
populations of the various parts of the world have arisen 
from various sources, undergoing different processes of 
development in the course of ages. Even though physical 
conditions be equivalent at the present time on two 
points of the world, the plant materials which had to 
ghange and adjust themselves to these now identical 
environments r&ay have been originally different. It is 
somewhat difficult, for instance, to understand why the 
Pacific mountains of North America should be so over- 
whelmingly populated with coniferous forests, without 



304 CONCLUSION 

the help of some geological reason. In other words, the 
processes of modification of unlike plant materials in 
view of the same end have been different. Starting with 
a different history or heredity, plant materials evolving 
towards a similar adjustment to similar circumstances 
have attained this same end in different ways. Assuming, 
therefore, an equal degree of fitness to thrive, reproduce, 
and spread amid equivalent surroundings, it is not sur- 
prising that -the result, in point of plant-forms and 
combinations thereof, offers divergences. It would be 
bold, however, to assert that the vegetation, even as 
it is now represented in corresponding natural regions, 
is adapted with equal efficiency to its actual environ- 
ment. Instances are not wanting of one type of 
vegetation dying out, of another slowly spreading and 
replacing it. 

In South Africa the mediterranean vegetation of the 
south-western or Cape region is slowly being driven 
back by the drier and lower forms of the Karroos : in 
the savanas of Central Africa it is an open question 
whether the baobab or monkey-bread tree is still 
spreading or holding its own, indeed whether it is not 
gradually dying out : in the back lands of Queensland 
and New South Wales, there is a severe struggle between 
the grass-land and the thorny brigalow scrub whose 
formidable tangles steadily spread and kill the grass: 
again, the superior fitness of plants, from other but 
similar regions of the world, to hold the ground is well 
illustrated in the Plate region, where weeds imported 
from the Mediterranean propagate with extraording$f 
rapidity at the expense of the native species : or agajn 
in New Zealand, where a high proportion of foreign 
plants have been able successfully to compete with the 
indigenous vegetation. Nearer home, the advance of 



CONCLUSION 305 

the spruce forests from east to west through north- 
western Europe is an established fact. Gradual changes 
of climate are almost certainly responsible for the 
retreat of the Canary temperate rain-forests to secluded 
moist gorges; for the transformation of the vegetation 
of Cyprus and Cyrena'ica, the latter once a granary of 
Rome : again, travellers through the deserts of Takla- 
makan report having passed through endless miles of 
dead scrub of saxaul and other desert shrubs. 

That the length of time during which the present 
physical conditions have prevailed, and therefore during 
which the process of adjustment has been going on, has 
been unequal in various corresponding regions, is highly 
probable and, in some instances, is established beyond 
doubt. The result naturally is that the aim is not at- 
tained with the same completeness everywhere and that 
a more or less large proportion of plant-forms belonging 
to previous periods in the history of these regions has 
been able to survive. In other words, when dealing 
either with single growth forms or combinations of them 
into landscapes, the problem involves the fourfold 
question : 

(1) of origin, starting-point, or previous history ; 

(2) of process of adjustment ; 

(3) of time during which this process has been at 
work ; 

(4) of the gradual evolution of physical conditions ; or 
again, of the point which the process of adjustment 
may have reached. 

The task of finding out homologies is thus rendered 
somewhat complex, and the degree of correspondence is 
not equal in all cases. 

Last, not least, man has been instrumental in intro- 
ducing profound changes in the character and economy 

1159.1 X 



306 CONCLUSION 

of the world surface. The heavily forested plains of 
Europe and North America have retained a small pro- 
portion of woodlands: China has been cultivated for 
countless centuries : all over the world, whole mountain- 
chains have been left bereft of their plant covering and 
turned into arid rocks : a good deal of the treelessness of 
the Asiatic grass-lands is probably due to persistent 
depredations : the tropical savana has been extended and 
depleted by yearly grass fires at the expense of woodlands 
and even of the tall forests. 

This interference with the balance of nature, some- 
times justified by the very necessities of life, and 
constituting legitimate improvements upon the original 
conditions, from man's standpoint, has, in countless other 
instances, been the result of ignorance and improvidence, 
involving consequences disastrous for humanity. It is 
somewhat sad to reflect that the activity of quite a con- 
siderable portion of mankind is devoted to repairing 
damages done by other portions, or by former generations. 

What has been said hitherto of the large masses of 
vegetation obtains, and in a still larger measure, when 
considering the various minor units of different orders 
yrhich compose them, and may be conveniently termed 
here plant formations or communities. Ultimately, 
among the primitive units, the growth forms or 
vegetative types, which correspond to plant species 
in the study of the flora, analogies of this sort are 
innumerable. To mention only one or two of the most 
striking instances: the candelabra cerei or cacti of 
America correspond to the candelabra euphorbia of Africa; 
the agaves of Mexico and Texas are equivalent to nfSny 
forms of African aloes, and are frequently mistaken 'for 
them; or again, analogous cushion-forms in arctic or 
in alpine regions are drawn from the most diverse orders 



CONCLUSION 307 

of plants: the 'elfin' form is assumed by shrubs of 
widely separated families in widely separated habitats. 

Botanic gardens, with their conservatories, thus group 
together plants of the same requirements and modes of 
life, and provide them as far as possible with the most 
favourable conditions. Hence the variety of moist 
tropical hothouses, dry tropical houses, fern and palm 
houses, temperate houses, alpine rockeries, marshes, &c., 
endeavouring to copy the conditions of climate and 
soils suitable to analogous plant forms. It is there 
that the variety and uniformity of Nature will be best 
studied in our countries. 



GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX 



The spelling of the names following is that of ChisholnVs Gazetteer 
Of the World. 

The figures in thick type indicate the headings of sections. 



Abertos, 142. 

Abyssinia, 199, 217, 218, 220, 

221. 

Abyssino-Eritrean Foot-hi 11s, 219. 
Adamawa, 228. 
Aderar, 207. 
Adriatic, 283. 
Aegean, 286. 
Afghanistan, 45. 
Africa, 195, 306. 

Central, 304. 

East, 238. 

Mediterranean, 199. 

South, 241, 304. 

West, 226. 
African Islands, 204. 

Mountain Region, East, 232. 
Ahaggar, 207. 
Ahir, 207. 
Ainsefra, 203. 
Akmolinsk, 62. 
Alai, 59. 

Alaska, 16, 17, 79, 81,83. 
Albania, 288. 
Aldan, 63, 65. 
Alexandria, 58. 
Algoa Bay, 246. 
Alleghany, 89. 
Altai, 63, 66, 69. 
Alto Parana, 149. 
Altyn Tagh, 65. 
Amazon, 19, 124, 145. 

Basin, 135. 
America, 306. 

Central, 123,124. 

North, 75, 806. 

South, 124. 
Amu, 57, 58, 70. 
Amur, 13, 14. 
Amuria, 13, 22, 68, 65, 84. 
Anadyr, 10. 
Anahuac, 117, 119. 



Anatolia, 58, 55, 279. 
Andalusia, 282. 

Andes, 124, 131, 147, 151, 161, 
162. 

Argentine sub-tropical, 164. 

Eastern, 163. 

Western, 166. 

Peruvian, 166. 
Angola, 231. 
Annam, 17. 
Antilles, Lesser, 123. 
Apa, 153. 

Appalachian Region, 85, 90. 
Apure, 151. 
Arabia, 221, 223. 

Felix, 219, 221. 
Arakan, 17. 
Aral, 55, 58. 
Arctic Ocean, 5. 

Region, 261. 
Areg, 205. 

Argentina, West, 155. 
Argentine Cordillera, 165. 

Wastes, West, 155. 
Arizona, 93, 118. 
Arkansas, 90. 
Armenia, 44, 49. 53, 55. 
Asia, 1. 

Minor, 53, 56. 
Assam, 18, 86. 
Atacama, 168. 
Atbara, 223. 
Athi, 235. 

Atlantic Lowlands of Mexico,119. 
Alps, 257, 261 j 276, 283, 288.. 

Western, 291. 
Atlas, 51, 199, 283. 

Intermont. plateaus, 202. 

Saharan, 202, 208. 
Australia, 171. 

South, 182. 
(Aymaras, 16S. 



GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX 



309 



Babylonia, 221. 
Bactra, 58. 
Bactria, 58. 
Badakshan, 59. 
Bad-Lands, 95. 
Bagrach-kul, 70. 
Bahr-al-Ghazal, 224, 228. 
Balkh, 58. 
Baluchistan, 44, 48, 51. 

Highlands, 41, 42. 
Bafiados, 153, 154. 
Barka, 202. 
Barue, 235. 
Beira, 249. 
Benguella, 282, 237. 
Berbers, 202. 
Bering Sea, 78, 83. 

Straits, 17. 
Bermejo, 148, 151. 
Biskra, 203. 
Black Earth, 28, 271, 276. 

Sea, 55, 272. 
Blue Mountains, 108. 
Borneo, 82, 84. 
Boschveld, 239. 
Brahmaputra, 36. 
Brazilian Coast Forest Belt, 139. 
Brazilian Highlands, 188, 149. 

East, 141. 

South, 143. 
Brigalow Scrub, 178. 
Britain, 291, 297. 
British Columbia, 104. 

Isles, 259. 
Brittany, 294. 
Burma, 17, 22. 
Buryan, 272. 
Bush prairie, 97. 

Caa-gapu, 136. 
Caa-guazu, 137. 
Caa-pura, 188. 
Caatinga, 18, 120, 141, 174. 
Caldera, 168. 

California, 102, 106, 112, 113. 
Gulf of, 112, 115. 

*JU >wer > U-5- 
Cambodia, 22. 
Cameroon, 227, 228. 
Campeachy, 120, 125. 
Campo vero, 142. 
Canada, 98. 

Canadian Forest, Great, 81. 
South, 84. 



Canary Islands, 204, 305. 
Cape Region, 244. 
Capoeira, 188. 
Capdes, 142. 
Carolina, 92. 

Carpathian!, 261, 278, 274. 
Carpentaria, 174, 180. 
Carrasco, 142. 
Cascade!, 99, 102, 108, 108. 
Caspian Sea, 3, 49, 56, 272. 
Cassiquiare, 131. 
Castanhal, 138. 
Caucasia, 276. 
Caucasus, 272, 276. 

Little, 278. 
Ceara, 142. 
Cebunayas, 124. 
Cedar glades, 90, 92. 

Mountains, 246. 
Celebes, 32, 84. 
Ceylon, 39. 
Chaco, 147, 149, 153. 
Chad, 207, 218, 228. 
Chapadat, 143. 
Chaparral, 113. 
Chernozyom, 271. 
Chiapas Valley, 120. 
Chibcha, 181. 
Chile, Central, 168. 
China, 306. 

Central, 29. 

Northern, 26. 
Chu, 58. 

Coast Mountains, 99. 
Colchis, 276. 
Colombia, 125, 131. 
Colorado, 104. 

Columbia, 17, 100, 104, 107, 112, 
Congo, 199, 224, 226, 230. 

Basin, 228. 
Cordilleras, 155. 
Coromandel, 88. 
Corrientes, 149. 
Crimea, 278. 
Cross Timbers, 97. 
Cuba, 128. 

Cumberland plateau, 89. 
Cunene, 242. 
Cyprus, 805. 
CyrenaXca, 202, 279, 305. 

Dakhel, 207. 
Dakota, 95. 
Dampierland, 176. 



310 



GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX 



Danube, 274, 283, 286. 
Deccan, 36, 3G, 42. 
Demerara, 185. 
Denmark, 288, 290. 293. 
Desert, Arabian, 207. 

Colorado, 115. 

Damara, 242. 

Egyptian, 207. 

Gibson, 182. 

Gila, 109. 

Great Central, 182. 

Indus, 4L 

Libyan, 207, 215. 

Mohave, 109, 113. 

Nubian, 207. 

Syrian, 50, 279. 

Tarim, 45, 56. 

Thar, 41, 42. 

Victoria, 180. 
Deserts, American, 113. 
Diarbekir, 52. 
Drakenberg, 24O, 247, 248. 

Ebi-nor, 70. 
Ebro, 283. 
Ecuador, 131. 
Egypt, 207. 
Egyptian Sudan, 210. 
Elburz, 42, 48, 49. 
Elgon, 285. 
Elgof, 207. 
El Khargeh, 207. 
England, 291, 293, 294. 
Entre Rios, 159. 
Erg, 206. 
Eritrea, 221. 
Eskimos, 81. 
Ester os, 156. 
Ethiopia, 219, 221. 
Euphrates, 50, 53. 
Europe, 25O, 306. 

Central, 288, 293. 

Northern, 266. 

Western, 291, 294 ; 29C. 

Falkland Islands, 162. 
Farafreh, 207. 
Fergana, 58, 70. 
Fezzan, 207. 
Figuig, 208. 
Finland, 266. 

Gulf of, 270. 
Fjelds, 10, 263. 
Flanders, 801. 



Florida, 88, 90, 123. 
Forests, Light, African, 224. 

Congo, 284. 

Flood, 136. 

Great Canadian, 81. 
Fort Churchill, 79. 
France, 267, 292. 
Frazer, 100. 
Fuego, 161, 162, 170. 
Futa-Jallon, 214, 288. 

Gaboon, 227, 228. 
Gambia, 212. 
Ganges, 19, 86. 
Garigue, 52. 
Garmsir, 51, 53. 
Gauchos, 159. 
Gazaland, 231, 238. 
Germany, 291. 

North, 259. 

North-west, 290. 

West, 293. 
Ghats, Eastern, 38. 

Western, 35, 88, 42. 
Gila, 117. 
Gironde, 294. 
Gobi, 24, 66, 75. 
Gold Coast, 224, 226. 
Goyaz, 142, 147. 

West, 145. 
Grass Belt, 94. 
Great Barrens, 81. 

Central Plateau, 23. 

Erg, 207. 

Lake Region, 84. 
Greece, 283. 
Greenland, 80, 82. 
Guapore, 147. 
Guardafui, 219. 
Guatemala, 131. 
Guayaquil, 124, 163. 
Guiana Highlands, 133. 

Lowlands, 135. 
Guinea, 214, 226. 

French, 226. 

Gulf of, 228. 

Upper, 224. 
Gulf Stream, 1&3. 

Hamada, 205. 
Han-hai, 66, 68. 
Hatteras, 9l! 
Hayti, 123. 
, 58. 



GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX 



311 



Heri-Rud, 58. 
Himalayas, 85, 86, 89, 42. 
Hindu Kush, 42, 45, 47. 
Hispaniola, 128. 
Hokkaido, 13, 23. 
Holland, 293, 801. 
Honduras, 125. 
Hoogeveld, 240. 
Hudson Bay, 79. . 
Hudsonian forest, 81. 
Hunan, 30, 81. 
Hungary, 273. 
Hupe, 80. 
Hwang-ho, 29, 70. 
Hylea, 186. 
Himyarites, 221. 

Idaho, 108, 109. 
Igapu, 19, 136. 
Igarapfs, 136. 
Igidi, 207. 
Ilchuri-AIin, 18. 
Illyria, 257. 
Illyrian Karst, 288. 
Incas, 168. 
India, 35. 
Indo-China, 17. 
Indus, 42,73. 
Interment plateaus, 107. 
Iran, 42. 
Irnwadi, 18, 19. 
Ireland. 258, 264, 294. 
Irtish, iO. 
Isfahan, 48, 49. 
Islas, 148. 
Isle of Wight. 294. 
Ivory Coast, 224. 

Jahlonoi, 65. 
Jamaica, 123. 
Japan, 15, 22, 27. 
Java, 32. 
Jujuy, 170. 
Jungle, 18, 21, 223. 
Junin wastes, 156. 
Jura, 288, 291. 



, 202. 
Kaffraria, 247. 
Kalahari, 211, 241, 242. 
Kamchatka, 16. 
Kami, 66. 
Kano, 213. 
Kansas, 95. 
Karamoyo, 235. 



Karroo, 242, 804. 
Kasai, 226. 
Kashmir, 73. 
Kentucky, 89, 91. 
Kenya, 235. 
Kerman, 44, 45. 
Khingan, Great, 13. 

Little, 23, 26. 

Khorassan, 44, 45, 48, 56, 53. 
Kiangsi, 30, 31. 
Kidwani, 235. 
Kilima-njaro, 235. 
Knytna forest, 246. 
Kobdo, 66, 69. 
Kolyma, 10. 
Korea, 13, 22. 
Korean Highlands, 23. 
Kria, 58. 
Kuhistan, 44. 
Kuku-nor, 78. 
Kuenlun, 68. 
Kur valley, 278. 
Kweichou, 80, 81. 

Labrador, 79. 

Ladakh, 73. 

Laghuat, 203. 

Lagos, 227. 

Lake Rudolph, 214. 

La Mancha, 283. 

Laos, 18. 

Lapland, 17. 

La Plata, 153. 

Lebanon, 282. 

Lebombo, 248. 

Lena, 12, 18. 

Liaotung, 26, 28. 

Limpopo, 238. 

Lisbon, 294. 

Llano Estacado, 93, 97. 

Llanos, Bolivian, 147, 148. 

Orinoco, 131, 185. 
Loango, 227. 
Lob-Nor, 70. 
Lualaba, 226. 

Macdonald Range, 182. 
Mackenzie River, 79, 82. 
Madagascar, 199, 248. 
Madeira, 205. 

River, 188, 147. 
Magellan, 162. 
Malabar, 85, 86, 39. 
Malay Archipelago, 17, 18, 32. 



312 



GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX 



Malezales, 153. 
Mallee scrub, 179. 
Manchuria, 14, 23. 
Maquis, 52. 
Maracaibo, 25. 
Maranh&o, 141. 
Masailand, 235. 
Masai plains, 235. 
Matoppos, 239. 

Matto Grosso, 142, 145, 147, 149, 
151. 

Virgem, 140. 
Mauretania, 199, 202. 
Maya, 124. 
Medanos, 153. 
Mediterranean, 50, 61, 257, 278, 

297, 304. 
Mediterranean Africa, 199. 

South Australia, 193. 
Mekong, 18, 19, 36. 
Mekran, 47. 
Menam, 19. 
Merv, 58. 
Mesas, 94. 
Meseta, 283. 

Mesopotamia, 42, 5O, 51, 56. 
Mexican plateau, 127. 
Mexico, 91, 118, 116, 131, 306. 

Gulf of, 91, 92. 

Southern, 119. 
Meztisos, 137. 
Minas geraes, 143. 
Minoans, 221. 
Misiones, 145. 
Mississippi, 88, 90, 97. 
MoSres, 301. 
Mogador, 199. 
Mogollon, 104, 110. 
Mongolia, 23, 62, 63, 65. 
Montana, 188, 147, 163. 
Montreal, 85. 
Moore, 188. 
Morocco, 279. 
Mossamedes, 238. 
Mossel Bay, 246. 
Mozambique, 234, 238. 
Mulga scrub, 18O. 
Murray-Darling Valley, 182. 

Nahua, 119. 
Namib, 242. 
Nan-shan, 68. 
Natal, 248. 
Nebraska, 95. 



New Caledonia, 191. 

England, 84. 

Guinea, 191. 

Mexico, 113. 

South Wales, 188, 304. 

Zealand, 191, 192, 304. 
Ngaundere, 228. 
Niger, 212, 214, 227. 
Nigeria, 224. 
Nile, 207, 218, 214, 216. 

Blue, 22S. 

Upper, 234. 
Nippon, 22. 
Norway, 270, 288. 
Nyassa, 234, 235, 238. 

Ob, 10. 
Oguwe, 227. 
Ohio, 89. 
Okhotsk, 3, 16. 
Old Calabar, 227. 
Orange River, 242. 
Ordos plateau, 90. 
Oregon, 108. 
Orinoco, 131, 132, 147. 
Orkhon, 65. 
Ormuz, 48. 
Ostiak, 11. 

Pacific Islands, 194. 
Paddy- lands, 19, 22. 
Pamirs, 66, 65, 71, 73. 
Pampa, 157. 
Papagos Indians, 114. 
Paraguay, 147, 149, 153. 
Parani, 145, 159. 

Marshes, Lower, 151. 
Patagonia, South, 161. 
Pernambuco, 140. 
Persia, 47, 48, 65. 
Persian Gulf, 43, 48, 63. 
Pilcomayo, 148, 151, 154. 
Pipil-Quichue, 131. 
Plate region, 304. 
Platte, 95. 
Polders, 301. 
Poljes, 283. 
Polygonal floor*, 8. 
Pontus, 66. 
Porto Alegre, 140. 
Portugal, 294. 
Po Valley, 287. 
Punas, 17O. 
uszta, 273. 



GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX 



313 



Pyrenees, 261, 278, 292, 294. 

Queensland, 178, 188, 304. 
Quichuas, 168. 

Rain forests, 21, 235. 

South Chilian, 169. 

South-eastern Temperate, 188. 
Rebnlsa, 136. 
Red River, 97. 

Sea, 207, 209, 218, 220. 
Reg, 205. 
Registan, 44. 
Restinga, 38. 
Rhine, 288. 
Rhodesia, 241, 248. 
Rhodope, 257, 274, 276. 
Rio Colorado, 157, 160. 
Rio de Oro, 207. 
Rio Grande, 93, 111, 117. 
Rio San Francisco, 148. 
Rocky Mountains, 83, 95, 104. 
Russia, 255, 266, 268. 
Ruwenzori, 235. 

Sabeans, 219, 221. 
Sabi, 235. 
Sacramento, 169. 
Sahara, 205, 207, 211. 
Sahel, 207. 
Sakhalin, 13, 15. 
Salitrales, 156. 
Salwin, 19. 
Samarkand, 58. 
San Francisco, 102. 

Luis, 112, 155, 157. 
Sanga, 227, 228. 
Santa Cruz, 147. 

F(, 153. 
Sao Paulo, 145. 
Savana, 18, 224. 

Bahr-al-Ghazal, 234. 

Guiana, 132, 134. 

Sudanese, 21O. 

Tropical, 174. 

Woods, 185. 
.. ^gambezi, 234. 
Save, 288, 286. 
Sayan, 63. 

Scandinavia, 266, 267, 290. 
Scandinavian Highlands, 265. 
Scilly Islands, 255. * 
Scotland, 264, 294, 298. 
Scottish Highlands, 265. 



Scrubland. 178. 
Sechwan, 80. 
Seistan, 45. 
Selva, 136, 224. 

Amazon, 133, 163. 

Guinea, 227. 
Semi-desert, Patagonia n, 160* 

Southern, 101. 

Somali, 234. 

Sudan, 208. 
Senegal, 207, 210. 
Senegambia, 212. 
Serrados, 142. 
Sertao, 141, 142, 174. 
Shamo, 66. 
Shantung, 28. 
Shari, 213, 224, 228. 
Shasta, 103. 
Shiraz, 43, 45, 47, 49. 
Shire, 234. 
Siam, 17, 18, 22. 
Siberia, 80. 

East, 12. 

West, 10. 
Siberian Highlands, 62. 

Taiga, 64. 
Sierra, 166. 
Sierra de Cordoba, 155, 157. 

do Mar, 139. 

Madre, 114, 116, 120. 

Nevada, 103, 108, 110,112,115. 
Sikhota Alin, 23. 
Si-kiang, 19. 
Siverma, 10. 
Sogdiana, 58. 
Somaliland, 220, 221, 223, 231, 

238. 

Somali plains, 219. 
Song-ho, 19. 
Sonora, Northern, 115. 
Southern States, 91. 
Spain, 258, 282. 
Spencer Gulf, 185. 
Staked Plain, 93. 
Stanley Falls, 280. 
Stanovoi, 12, 16. 
Steppe, Kirghiz, 56, 6L 

Rumanian, 287. 

Russian, 27O. 
Sudan, 218, 223. 

Egyptian, 214. 
Sumatra, 39. 
Sundarbans, 19. 
Suiigari, 13, 14, 25. 



814 



GEOGEAPHICAL INDEX 



Sungaria, 62, 66. 
Sutherland, 807. 
Syr, 57. 

Darias, 58. 
Syria, 221. 

Tabasco, 120. 
Tagaf, 18. 

Canadian, 81. 

Siberian, 64. 

Takhla Makan, 66, 68, 69, 305. 
Tanganyika, 236, 238. 
Tas, 10. 

Tasmania, 189. 
Taurus, 47, 52, 55, 282. 
Teda, 207. 
Teheran, 45. 
Tehuan tepee, 120, 124. 
Tell, 199, 279. 
Tennessee, 89, 90, 91, 92. 
Texas, 88, 90, 92, 94, 95, 97, 

808. 

Thornwood, 174. 
Tian Shan, 56, 59, 65, 68, 69. 
Tibesti, 207. 
Tibet, 17, 23, 71, 73. 
Tibu, 207. 
Tierra caliente, 120. 

templada, 120. 
Tigris, 50, 53. 
Tocantins, 188. 
Togo, 224, 228. 
Tola, 65. 
Tongking, 29. 
Trans-Baikalia, 63. 
Transvaal, 239, 241. 
Travesias, 155. 
Trieste, 228. 
Trinidad, 124. 
Tsaidam, 75. 
Tsin-ling, 29. 
Tsing-ling-shan, 68. 
Tucuman, 148. 
Tundra, 5, 79, 263. 
Tunis, 199, 207. 
Turan, 49, 66, 58, 68. 
Turkestan Highlands, 50. 

Ubanghi, 227, 228, 280. 



Uganda, 236. 
Umtaii, 235. 
Unyamwezi, 236. 
Urals, 10, 265. 
Uruguay, 141, 169. 
Ust-Urt, 56, 58. 
Usuri, 18, 25. 

Valdivia, 169. 

Valencia, 282. 

Vargam, 19. 

Venezuela, 124, 125, 131, 163. 

Venns, 291. 

Verkhoyansk, 10. 

Victoria Nyanza, 282, 236. 

River, 174. 
Vindhyas, 41. 
Vitim, 63, 65. 
Vosges, 288, 291. 
Vyatka, 266. 

Wales, 298. 
Wasatch, 104, 110. 
Washington, 89. 
Welle, 230. 
Wergian, 58. 
West Australia, 186. 
Western mountains, 98. 
West Indies, 91, 123, 181. 
Winnipeg, 84, 97. 

Yangkan, 10. 

Yang Tse, 23, 29. 30. 

Yellow Basin, 28. 

Earth, 28. 

River, 68. 
Yemen, 219, 220. 
Yenissei, 10. 
Yezd, 44. 
Yezo, 13, 15. 
Yorkshire, 801. 
Yucatan, 121, 125. 
Yukon, 83, 107. 
Yunnan, 18, 29. 

Zagros, 48, 45, 47, 48. 50, 53. 
Zambezi, 211, 226, 235, 236, 238, 
289. ' * 

Basin, 236. * 
Zerafshan, 58. 



INDEX OF PLANT NAMES 



Gerth van Wijk, Dictionary of Plant Names, and Engler-Prantl, 
Naturliche PJlanzenfamilien, have been taken as authorities in compil- 
ing thig Index. 



ASIA 



Aconite, Aconitum, Eranthis, &c. 

spp., 18, 60, 64. 

Ailanthus glandulosa, tree of Hea- 
ven, 27. 

Alder, Alnus spp., 11, 16. 
Almond, Prunus amygdalus, 44, 

47, 51, 59. 
Andromeda polifolia, Marsh andro- 

meda, or wild rosemary, 11. 
Anemone, 64. 

Apple, Pyrus malus, 47, 59. 
Apricot, Prunus Armeniaca, 44, 47, 

59, 70. 
Arabian acacia (gum acacia), 

Acacia arabica, 42. 
Areca (betel) nut palm, Areca 

Catechu, 19, 21. 
Arolla (Siberian stone) pine, 

Pinus Cembra, 12, 64. 
Artemisia spp., wormwood, 66. 
Ash, Fraxinus spp., 49. 
Ash, mountain (rowan), Sorbus 

Aucuparia, 14. 
Asparagus, 60. 

Aspen, Populus tremulosa, 63, 64. 
Azalea, 81. 

Bambu, Bambusa arundinacea, 
Dendrocalamua spp., 19, 81. 

Banana, Musa spp., 19, 21, 30. 

Barberry, Berberis vulgaris, 14, 60. 

P'Vifey, Hordeum wMgare, 28. 

Betel nut, see Areca. 

Bilberry, Vaccinium Myrtillus, 15, 
155. 

Birch, Betulus spp., 16^ 54, 68. 

BJack (Corsican) pine, Pinus 
Laricio, 54. 



Box, Buxus sempervirens, 49. 
Bramble, Rubus fruticosus, 18, 15, 

66. 

Bread fruit, Ardocarpus incisa, 19. 
Broussonetia papyrtfera, paper-tree 

or paper mulberry, 27. 
Buckthorn, Rhamnus spp., 75. 
Buffalo grass, Panicum muticum, 

25. 



Camphor, Cinnamomum Camphora, 

Dryobalanops aromatica, 21, 30. 
Candytuft, Iberis amara, 60. 
Cardamom, Elettaria Cardamomum, 

21. 

Catalpa, 29. 

Cassia, Cinnamomum Cassia. 
Casuarina (tjemoro), Casuarina 

equisetifolia, 34. 
Cedar of Lebanon, Cidrus Libani, 

54. 
Cedrtla spp., Bastard cedar, 

Chinese cedar, Toon tree, &c., 

88. 

Celtis spp., False elm, 39. 
Charm ik, Lycium barbarum, 75. 
Chrysanthemum, 31, 60. 
Cilician fir, Abies Cilicia, 54. 
Cinnamon, Cinnamomum zeylani- 

cum, 19, 21. 

Coco-nut 9 Cocos nucifera, 19, 89. 
Coffee, Cojfea spp., 84, 51. 
Columbine, Aquilegia spp., 60, 64. 
Cotton, Olossypium spp., 19, 28, 

31, 36, 51, 59. 
Cow-parsnip, Heracleum sphondy- 

ium, 61, 64. 



316 



PLANT INDEX 



Crocus, 60. 

Cucumber, Cucumis sativus, 21. 
Cypress, Cupressus funebris, 80, 48, 
64. 

Dahurica larch, Larix dahurica, 

16. 

Date palm, Phoenix dactylifera, 63. 
Day lily, Hemerocattisfulva, 61. 
Deodar, Cedrus Deodara, 41. 
Dimorphanthus, Aralia edulis, 14. 
Djati, see Teak. 
Dog rose, Rosa canina, 66. 

Elm, Ulmus spp., 14, 66. 
Euphrates poplar, Populus euphra- 
tica, 42, 44. 

Fig, Ficuscarica, 42, 48, 51, 62, 64. 
Fir, Abies spp., 41. 
.Fucfcst'a, 81. 

Gentian, 60, 64. 
Geranium, 18, 60, 64. 
Ginger, Zingiber offlcinale, 21. 
Qinkgo (bttobata), maidenhair tree, 

80. 
Gleditschia (sinensis), Chinese soap 

tree, 27. 

Globe flower, Trollius spp., 64. 
Grapes (vine), Vitia vinifera, 59, 70. 
Groundsel, Senecio spp., 64. 
Gutta-percha tree, Ficus elastica, 

21. 

Hazel, Corylusapp., 14. 

Heather, Erica spp., 801. 

Hdiotropium europatum, Heliotrope, 
cherrypie, 60. 

Hemp, Cannabis saliva, 25, 28, 31, 
51. 

Honeysuckle, Lonicera spp., 66. 

Hornbeam, Carpintis spp., 49. 

Horse-chestnut, Aesculus Hippo- 
cast anum, 55. 

Horsetail, Equisetum spp., 34. 

Hydrangea, 15. 

Indigo, Indigofsra tinctoria, 19, 81, 
36. 

Joponica, 81. 

Juniper, Juntperus spp., 54. 

Kamchatka rhododendron, Rhodo- 
dendron kamtschaticum, 16. 



Larch. Larix spp., 12, 14. 
Laurel, Laurus nobilis, 54. 
Lemon, Citrus Limonum, 19. 
Limetree, Tilia spp., 14. 
Ling, Calluna vulgaris, 9. 
Liquidambar (formosana), Chinese 

sweet gum, 80. 
Live oak, Quercus virens, 47, 54. 

Magnolia, 31. 

Maize, Zea Mais, 28, 81, 48, 61 , 53, 

59, 70. 
Mangrove, Bruguiera gymnorrhiza, 

Rhizophora conjugata, &c., 86. 
Man jack, Cordia macrophylla, 19. 
Maple, Acer spp., 14, 49. 
Melon, Cucumis Melo, 21, 59, 70. 
Millet, Panicum spp., Sorghum spp., 

&c., 49. 
Mongolian oak, Quercus mongolica, 

Monkshood, Aconitum Napellus, 13. 
Mulberry spp., Morus, 59, 70. 
white, Morus alba, 48. 

Nitraria spp., nitre bush, salt tree, 
75. 

Oak, Quercus spp., 41, 49, 55. 
Olive, Olea spp., 39, 47, 64. 
Onion, Allium Cepa, 31. 
Opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, 

25, 36. 
Orange, Citrus Aurantium f 19, 54. 

Pansy, Viola tricolor, 60. 
Pauloumia(Indica) , Matheran c offee , 

29. 

Peach, Prunus Persica, 44, 47, 51. 
Peony, Paeonia spp., 64. 
Pepper, Piper nigrum, 21. 
Phlox spp., Pink, Sweet William, 

&c., 60. 

Pine, Pinus spp., 14, 41, 54. 
Pineapple, Ananas sativa, 19. 
Plane, Platanus spp., 44, 48, 49. 
Plum, Prunus a,pp., 59. _ 

Pomegranate, tytnica QranatunfffT, 

48. 
Poplar, Populus spp., 16, 17, 44, 

49, 59, 61, 66, 68. 
Poplar, Lombardy, Populus pyra- 

midalis, 59. 
Poppy, Papaver spp., 81, 60, 64. 



PLANT INDEX 



317 



Plerocarya spp., Caucasian walnut, 

&c.,55. 
Pumpkin, Cucurbita Pepo, 70. 

Raspberry, Rubus idaeus, 66. 
Rhododendron. 11, 17, 81, 41, 55, 

60. 

Rhubarb, Rheum officinale, 60, 66. 
Rice (paddy), Oryza sativa, 19, 21, 

86, 51,53, 59. 
Rose, Rosa spp., 60. 
Rowan (mountain ash), Sorbus 

Aucuparia, 14. 
Rubber, Ficus elastica, 21. 

Sabine juniper, Juniperus sabina, 
60. 

Sal tree, Shorea robusta, 39. 

Sandal- wood, Santalum album, 38. 

Saxaul, Haloxylon ammodendron, 57, 
68. 

Saxifrage, 64. 

Scots pine, Pinus syhestris, 12, 64. 

Senecio spp., Ragwort, groundsel. 

Siberian fir, Pinus Cembraj 64. 

Sophora spp. , Pagoda tree, Hima- 
layan laburnum, &c., 27. 

Spruce, Picea spp., 12, 64. 

Sugar cane, Saccharum ojfficinarum, 
21, 31, 82. 



Sumac, Rhus spp., 89. 

Tamarind, Tamarindus indica, 19. 
Tamarisk, comm on, Tamarix anglica 

or gallica, 42, 44, 57, 68, 75. 
Tea. Thea chincnsis, 21, 30, 39. 
Teak, Tectona grandis, 18, 21, 83, 

38. 
Tobacco, Solanum nicotiana, 19, 25, 

28, 31, 84, 49, 58. 
TsugafirjTsttgfa brunoniana, &c., 14. 
Tulip, Tulipa spp., 60, 67. 

Vine, Vitis vim/era, 14, 49. 
Violet, Viola spp., 64. 

Walnut, Juglans regia, 14, 41, 44, 

47, 49, 55, 59, 70. 
Wheat, Triticum spp., 31, 36, 48, 

51,53, 59. 

Whortleberry, Vaccinium spp., 13. 
Wild rose, Rosa, comma, 18. 
Willow, Salix spp., 16, 61, 66, 68. 
Willow herb, Epilobiumspp., 64. 
Wormwood, Artemisia spp., 68. 

Yew, Taxus baccata, 15. 

Zelkova spp., river elm, keaki, 
false sandal-wood, &c., 49. 



NORTH AMERICA 



Acacia spp., 114. 

Agave (americana), False or Ameri- 

can Aloe, century plant, 93, 

114, 117. 
Alder, Alnus spp., 86, 100. 



Arctic (Iceland) poppy, Papaver 

nudicaule, 81. 

Artemisia spp., worm wood, 108,112. 
Ash, Fraxinus spp., 85, 86. 
Aspen, Popidus tremuloidesj 83, 

107, 110. 

B$Jd (or swamp) cypress, Taxo- 

dium distichum, 92. 
Balsam fir, Abies balsamifera, 83. 
Balsam poplar, Populus balsami- 

/era, 83. 

Banana, Musa spp., 116. 
Bearberry, Arctostaphylos uva ursi, 

81, S3. 



Beech, Fagus spp., 85. 

Big tree (Wellingtonia), Sequoia 

gigantea, 103. 

Birch, Betula spp., 84, 86. 
Birch, paper (or canoe), Betula 

papyracea, 83. 
Black spruce, Picea nigra (maria- 

na), 88, 87. 
Buffalo grass, Buchlov dactyloides, 

94, 98. 
Bunch grass, Bouteloua oligosta- 

chya, 110, 118. 

Cacao, Theobroma Cacao, 120. 
Cactus, 93, 95, 111, 116, 117, 121. 
Californian laurel, Umbellularia 

californica, 112. 
Candelabra-cerei, Cereus giganteus, 

116. 

Cedar, Cedrus spp., 120. 
Cereus, 93, 95, 114. 



318 



PLANT INDEX 



Chestnut (edible), Castanea satira, 

86. 

Coconut-palm, Cocos nucifera, 117. 
Coffee, Cqffea spp., 117. 
Cotton, Qlossypium spp., 89, 91, 

94, 117. 
Cotton wood, Populus moniltfera, 

107, 108. 

Cranberry, Oxy coccus palustris, 88. 
Creosote-bush, Larrea mexicana, 

114. 

Crowberry, Empetrum nigrum, 83. 
Cypress, Cupretsus spp., 112. 



,,. 
Dodecantheon primrose (Ameri- 

can cowslip),Dodecantoeon Meadia, 

81. 
Douglas (red) fir, Pseudotsuga 

Douglasii, 100, 102, 106, 111. 
Dwarf oak, Quercus humilis, 113. 
Dwarf pine, Pinus Mughus, 104. 
Dyewood (logwood), Haamotacyton 

campechianurn, 120. 

Elm, Wmus app., 86, 97. 
Eurotia spp., white sage, &c., 95. 
Evergreen oak, Qwrcus itac, 92. 

Fir, -4Msspp., 100, 110. 
Fraser's fir, Abies Fraseri, 87. 

Gentian, 81. 

tferam'um, 81. 

Gleditschia spp., Honey locust, 

&c., 90, 97. 
Grama grass, Bouteloua spp., 95, 

98, 110. 
Guayule (rubber bush), Parthenium 

argentatum, 117. 
Qymnodadus spp., Kentucky coffee- 

tree, Ac., 90, 97. 

Hazel, Corylus spp., 86. 

Hemlock spruce, Tsuga canadensts, 

85, 86, 89, 97. 
Hickory (white walnut), Carya 

spp., 85, 86, 89, 97. 
Hornbeam, Carpinus spp., 85, 86. 
Horse-chestnut, Aesculus spp., 86. 
Huckleberry, Gaylussacia spp., 83. 

Incense-tree, Liquidambar styraci- 
Jlua, 92. 



Juniper, Juniperus spp., 104. 

Kalmia spp., American laurel, &c. 
81, 86. 

Laurel, Laurus spp., 86. 

Ledum spp., Labrador tea plant, 

&c., 81. 

Lemon, Citrus Limonum, 113. 
Lime, Tilia spp., 85, 97. 
Lucerne (see Alfalfa), 113. 

Madura spp., Bow wood, osage 
orange, &c., 86. 

Magnolia spp., Sweet bay, cucum- 
ber tree, &c., 86, 92. 

Mahogany, Swietenia Mahagoni, 
120. 

Maize, Zea Mais, 90 t 113, 117. 

Mammillaria spp., Mammal cactus, 
&c., 114. 

Mango, Mangifera indica, 116. 

Mangrove, JRhizophora mangle, &c., 
115. 

Maple, Acer spp., 85, 86. 

Mesquite, Prosopis spp., 93, 117. 

Mexican rubber, Castilloa dastica. 
120. 

Mimosa spp., 114. 

Monterey cypress, Cupressus macro- 
carpus, 102. 

Mountain mahogany, Cercocarpus 
spp., 110. 

Mulberry, Moras spp., 113. 

Murray (lodge polo) pine, Pinus 
Murrayana, 107. 

Nolina (Roulinia), 114. 

Oak, Quercus spp., 84, 86, 89, 97. 

Oats, Avena spp., 117. 

Ocotillo (devil's chair), Fouquiera 

splcndcns, 114. 

Oil palm, Elaeis guincensis, 117. 
Olive, OZeaspp., 118. 
Qpuntia spp., Prickly pear, Ac., 

93, 95, 114." ^^ 

Orange, Citrus r Aurantium, 113. 

Papaw, Carica papaya, 116. 
Peach, Prunus persiea, 118. 
Pine, P'nus*spp., 110. 
Pinon, Pinus cdulis, 104. 
f Pitch pine, Pinus rigida, 84. 



PLANT INDEX 



319 



Plane, Platanus spp., 85, 86. 
Poplar, Populus spp., 86, 110. 
Potato, Solanum tuberosum, 117. 
Prairie grass, Spartina spp. , 95. 

Red cedar (savin), Juniperus 
virginiana, 90. 

Red spruce, Picea rubra, 83, 87. 

Red wood, Sequoia sempervirens, 
102. 

Rhododendron spp., False honey- 
suckle, rosebay, azalea, &c., 81, 
86, 92. 

Rice, Oryzasativa, 117. 

Robinia spp., Locust tree, false 
acacia, 86, 89. 

Sabal Palmetto, Palmetto palm, 92. 
Sage brush, Artemisia tridentata, 

108, 110, 112. 

Sassafras officinale (Laurus Sassa- 
fras}, sassafras tree, ague tree, 

86. 

Saxifrage, Saxifraga spp., 81. 
Sequoia, see Big tree, redwood. 
Silver fir, Abies pectinata, 102. 
Single-leaf pine, Pinus monophylla, 

110. 

Spruce, Picea spp., 100, 102, 107. 
Sugar-cane, Saccharum officinarum, 

91, 92, 117. 

Sugar maple, Acer Saccharinum, 85. 
Sugar pine, Pinus Lambertiana, 102. 
Swamp cypress, Taxodium di- 

stichum, 92. 
Swamp (long leaf) pine, Pinus 

Lambertiana, 92. 



Sweet gale (bog myrtle), Myrica 
Gale, 88. 

Tamarack (black larch), Lanx 

americana, 83, 84. 
Tillandtia spp., Tumble weeds, &c., 

92. 

Tobacco, Nicotiana Tabacum, 89. 
Tsuga, set Hemlock spruce, 100, 

102. 
Tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipifera,86. 

Vanilla, Liatris odoratissima, 120. 
Virginia creeper, Vitis hederacea, 

Ampelopsis quinquefolia, Ac., 87. 
Virginian oak, Quercus virginiana, 

92. 

Walnut, Juglans spp., 85, 86, 97. 
Water melon, Citrulus vulgaris, 94. 
Weymouth pine, Pinus Strobus, 

84, 85, 87. 

Wheat, Triticum spp., 90, 108, 117. 
White elm, Ulmus americana, 85. 
White spruce, Picea canadensis 

(alba\ 88. 

Whortleberry, Vaccinium spp., 83. 
Willow, Salix spp., 81, 100, 110. 
Winter green, Qaultheria procum- 

bens, 88. 
Wormwood, Artemisia spp., 97. 

Yellow pine, Pinus mitis, 103, 104, 

106, 111. 
Yucca spp., Adam's needle, 

Spanish bayonet, bear's grass, 

&c., 93, 114. 



SOUTH AMERICA 



Acacia spp., 125, 128, 141, 142, 

148, 166. 

Adesmia, Lena amarilla, 165. 
Agave spp., century plant, &c., 

128, 142. 

Alfalfa, Medicago saliva, 159. 
44*, 142. 
Alsophila, 140. 
Andropogon spp., False spikenard, 

&c., 158. 
Antarctic beech, Fagus antarctica, 

162. 
Araucaria spp*, 140. 



Araucaria brasiliensis, Brazilian 

pine, 144. 
Araucaria imbricata, Chile pine, 

monkey puzzle, 169. 
Aristida spp., Drinn grass, &c., 158. 
Atriplex spp., Common orache, &c., 

148. 
Attaka spp., Broom palm, &c., 

142. 

Baccharis spp., Groundsel tree, 
ploughman's spikenard, &c., 
157. 



320 



PLANT INDEX 



Bambu, Bambusa spp., 127. 164. 

169. 

Banana, Musa spp., 126. 
Barberry, Berberis vulgaris, 169. 
Bean, Ftaaspp., 143. 
Bejaria spp.. Rose of the Andes. 

&c., 164. 
Bombax Ceiba, silk cotton tree. 

141. 

Brazil nut, see Para 1 nut. 
Broad-leaved cedar, 164. 
Bromelia spp., Wild pine- apple, 

pinguin, &c., 141, 142. 
Buddleia spp., Summer lilac, 

honey-ball tree, &c., 164. 
Buriti palm, Mauritia spp., 142. 

Cacao, Theobroma Cacao, 125, 126, 

184, 185. 
Cactut, 148. 
Calceolaria, 166. 
Candelabra cereus, Cereus gigan- 

teus, 141, 148. 
Carfiauba (wax fan palm), Coperni- 

cia certfera, 142. 
Cassia (acutifolia, angusti folia], 

senna, 148. 
Cebil acacia (red cebil), Acacia 

Cebil, 148. 

Ceiba, Eriodendrcnleiantherum, 125. 
Cereus, 142, 155, 167, 166. 
Chafiar, Gourlita chilensis, 148, 155, 

165. 

Chestnut, Cupaina amm'cana, 164. 
Cinchona spp., Peruvian bark, 

quinine, 164. 
Clematis, 166. 

Coconut-palm, Oocos nuei/era, 148. 
Cocos coronata, 142. 
Coffee, Coffea spp., 145. 
Colletia cruciate, anchor plant, 

169. 

Cotton, Glossypium spp., 126. 
Cranberry, Oxycoccus palustris, 169. 
Creosote bush, Larrea mexicana, 

165. 

DrimyaWinteri, Winter's bark, 164, 

169. 
Dyewood, Hafmatoxylon camp*- 

chianum, 125. 

Echeveria (cotyledon) spp. , Kidney, 
wort, pennywort, &c., 166. 



Elder, Sambucus spp., 165. 
Epiphytes, 127, 140, 149, 169. 
Escallonia spp., Chile gum box, 

&c., 164, 165, 169. 
Evergreen oak, Quercus ilex. 127, 

164. 

Frailezones, Esptletia, Culcitium 
spp., 127. 

Green beech, 170. 
Qynerium argenteum, Pampas grass, 
158. 

Ichu grass, Slipa Ichu, 170. 
Ilex, see Evergreen oak. 

Jaracanda, 140. 

Laurel, Lauras nobilis, 164. 
Lianas, 127, 140, 149, 164. 
Lupin, Lupinus spp., 166. 

Nachaerium spp., Tigerwood, <fec., 

164. 
Mahogany, Swietenia Mahagoni, 

125. 
Maize, Zea Mais, 126, 184, 138, 

142. 
Mandioca (main hot, cassava), 

Mandioca utilissima, 188, 142. 
Mango, Mangifera indica, 127. 
Mangrove, Conocarpus erectus, Rhi- 

zophora mangle, &c., 126. 
Manioc, sn Mandioca, 134, 145. 
Mauritia or miriti palm, Mauritia 

vintfera &nd flexuosa, 187. 
Melica spp., Melic grass, 158. 
Mesquite, Prosopis ipp., 166. 
Mimosa, 148, 169. 

Oak, Qutrcus spp., 181. 

Ombu (poke weed), Phytolacca spp., 

157. 
Opuntia spp., Prickly pear, &c., 

141, 155, 157, 166. 
Orange, Citrus Aurantium, 148. 
Orchid, 141. 

Palms, 149, 1^4. 

Pampas grass, Qyneriwn argenteum, 

157, 158. 
Panicwn spp., millet, panic grass, 

&c., 132, 158. 
Papaw, Carita papaya, 127. 
Pappophorum, 158. 



PLANT INDEX 



321 



Para (Brazil) nut, Bertholletia 

(Castanka) excelsa, 188. 
Par& (Brazilian) rubber, Hevea 

brasiliensis and Seringeira, 125, 

126, 186. 
Paspalum spp., millet grass, 182, 

158. 

Peach, Prunus Persica, 159. 
Peruvian alder, Alnus acuminata, 

165. 

Pine, Pinus spp., 131. 
Pineapple, Ananas sativa, 126. 
Plantago spp., Plantain, 160. 
Plum, Pfunus domestica, 159. 
Poa flabellata, Tussock gra^>8, 161. 
Podocar^ws spp., plum fir, &c., 164, 

165. 

Prickly pear, Opuntia vulgaris, 128. 
Prosopis, Mesquite, 148. 

Quebr&chOjAspidosperma Quebracho, 

147, 148. 

Quenoa, Polylepis racemosa, 165. 
Quillaja saponaria, Chile soap tree, 

169. 
Quince, Oydonia vulgaris, 159. 

Ratama, Spartocytisus nubigens, 
155. 

Rhopala, 184. 

Rice, Orysa sativa, 127. 

Rose of the Andes, Bejariaspp., 164. 

Rrfbber, ce~ara (see also Pard rub- 
ber), Manihot Qlaziovii, Rubber, 



Guiana, Hevea gnianensis, &c., 
135. 

Saponaria spp., Soap wort, 169. 
Schinus spp., Mastic tree, false 

pepper, &c., 157. 

Spondiasspp., Hog plum, &c., 141. 
Stipa spp., Feathergrass, &c., 158. 
Strawberry tree, Arbutus Unedo, 

127. 
Sugai'-cane, Saccharum ojficinarum, 

125, 134, 135, 138, 148. 
Sumac, Rhus spp , 169. 
Swartzia grandifolia, Brazilian 

black tree, 134. 

Tillandsia spp., Tumbleweed, vege- 
table hair, black moss, &c., 141, 
165. 

Tobacco, Nicotiana Tabacum, 127. 
166. 

Tree ferns, 164, 169. 

Vanilla, Llatris odoratissima, 125. 
Verbena, 155, 160. 

Wax palm, Copernica cerifera, 164. 

Verba-mate" (Paraguayan tea tree), 
Hex paraguayensis t 145, 148, 151. 
Yucca, 142. 

Zisyphus spp., jujube tree, lotus 
tree, &c., 141. 



AUSTRALIA 



Acacia spp., Myalls, wattles, &c., 

182, 185, 189. 
African marigold, Tagetes e recta, 

179. 

Alsophila, 188. 
Andropogon spp., False spikenard, 

golden beard grass, &c., 181. 
Araucaria spp., Bunya-bunya, 

Norfolk Island pine, &c., 189. 
Aristida spp., Drinu grass, &c. , 

w. 

Banana, Musa spp., 194. 

Banksia spp., Australian honey- 
suckle, bottle brush, &c., 185, 
189. 

Bcmbax Ce:da, Silk cotton tre, 176. 

1169.1 ] 



Bread fruit, Arctocarpus incisa, 194. 

Brigalow scrub, Acacia harpophylla, 
179. 

Callitris spp., Cypress pine, &c., 
180. 

Casuarina spp., Beef- wood, she- 
oak, &c., 176, 180, 182. 

Coco-nut, Cocos nucifera, 194. 

Colocasia spp., koko-yam, taro, &c., 
194. 

Cotton, Glossypium spp., 188. 

Cyathea, 188. 

Zticksonia, 188. 

Eucalyptus spp., Australian gum 
tree, 176, 182, 184, 189. 



322 



PLANT INDEX 



Evergreen beech, ' Black birch', 
Fagus antarctica, 198. 

Kahikatea (Sugar-loaf pine, white 

pine), Podocarpus dacrydioides, 

198. 
Kangaroo grass, Anthistiria au- 

stralis, 181. 
Kauri, Agathis (Dammara) austra- 

Ks, 198. 

Leptospermum spp., South Sea 
myrtle, Australian tea tree, &c., 
174. 

Mnize, Zea Mais, 183, 198. 

Mai lee scrub, Eucalyptus dumosa, 

179. 

Mango, Mangifera indica, 188. 
Mangrove, Rhizophora mucronata, 

&c., 178. 
Melaleuca Cajapuli (leucadendrori), 

cajuput (Australian tea tree), 

180, 191. 

Mimosa spp., wattles, &c., 182, 185. 
Miihlenbeckia spp., Macquarrie 

harbour grape, native ivy, &c., 

181. 
Mulga scrub, Acacia aneura, 180. 

Olive, Otea spp., 185. 

Orange, Citrus Aurantium, 185, 189. 



Palms, 173. 

Pandanusapp., Screwpine,&c., 178. 



Pimeka spp., Rice flower, 179. 
Pineapple, Ananas sativa, 188. 
Podocarpus spp., Australian yew, 

brown or shea pine, &c., 

198. 

Porcupine grass, see Spinifex. 
Protea spp., sugar bush, Wagen 

boom, &c., 185. 

Rhagodia spp., Australian sea 
berry, &c., 181. 

Sago palm, Metroxylon (Sagus) 

Rumphii, 194. 
Sandalwood (bastard), Eremophila 

Mitchelli, 17$, 

Spinach, Spinacia oleracea, 181. 
Spinifex (porcupine grass), Triodia 

irritans, pungens, 182. 
Stipa tenacissima, Alfa or esparto 

grass, 181. 
Sugar-cane, Saccharum officinarum, 

188. 

Tea tree, Leptospermum, 174. 

Todea, 188. 

Tree nettle (stinging tree), Lar- 

portea gigas, 189. 
Triodia, see Spinifex. 

Vine, Vitis vinifera, 185, 189. 
Wheat, Triticum spp., 188, 19a. 
Yam, Dioscorea sativa, 194. 



AFRICA 



Acacia, 208, 209, 211, 218, 220, 

228. 228, 281, 289, 241. 
Acacia Cyclops, 246. 
Acacia horrid a, Tusk thorn acacia, 

289, 241. 
Acanthosicyos horrida> Kara plant. 

242. 

Adenium spp., Hongel bush, 220. 
Aderas, Commiphora sp , 208, 215. 
Alfa or esparto grass, Stipa tenacis- 

sima, 204, 205. 
Aloe, 220, 281, 236, 238, 241, 247, 

248. 
Anabasis spp., Desert cauliflower, 

berry- bearing glasswort, &o., 

206. 



Andropogon spp., 289, 241. 
Anogeissua spp., Chew stick, &o., 

226. 

Arabian coffee, Cojffea arabica, 219. 
Aristida spp., 289, 241. 
Aristida pungens, Drinn grass, 208, 

207. 
Atlantic pistacia, Pistacia atlantica, 

203, 204. 
Atlas cedar, Cedrus atlanticaj&Q2, 

245. 

Balanites spp., thorn tree, desert 

date, &c % 216. 
Balsam tree, see Aderas. 
Bamfeu, Arundo Donax, 285. 



PLANT INDEX 



Banana, Musa spp., 205, 248. 
Banyan, Ficus indica, 211. 
Baobab (calabash or monkey's 

breadj, Adansonia digitata. 211. 

218, 228, 281, 236. 
Batoum pistacia (see Atlantic 

pistacia). 

Bombaxj Silk cotton tree, 226. 
Borassus palm (deleb), Borassus 

Atthiopium, 211, 228, 230. 
Bunchgrass, Bouteloua oligostachya, 

216. 
Butter and tallow tree (guttifer 

shi butter) ButyrospermumParkii, 

211, 213, 228. 

Calotropis spp., Mudar, 228. 
Canary date palm, Phoenix cana- 

riensis, 204. 
Candelabra euphotia, Candle- stick 

cactus, 219, 220, 228, 231, 286, 

288. 

Cape heath, Erica spp., 246. 
Capparis spinosa, Common caper, 

244. 

Cassia, Senna plant, 221. 
Cedar of Lebanon, Cedrus Libani, 

246. 
Ceiba, Eriodendron anfractuosum, 

226, 280. 

Chlorophora spp., Odum, &c., 226. 
Cistus spp., Rock rose, &c., 200. 
Coco- nut palm, Cocos nucifera, 226. 
Coffee sp., Coffca, 226, 231. 
Cork oak, Quercus Suber, 201. 
Cotton, Olossypium spp., 226, 231. 

Date palm, Phoenix dactylifera, 201, 

208. 
Dhurra millet, Sorghum vulgare, 

209. 
Doum palm, Hyphaene thebaica, 

209, 211, 218, 215. 
Dragon tree, Dracaena Draco, 204, 

220, 230. 

Drinn, Aristida pungens, 203, 207. 
Dwarf oak, Quercus humilis, 200. 
Dwarf palm, Charhaerops humilis. 

201. 

Ephedra spp., sea grape, shrubby 

horse tail, &c., 206. 
Esparto, see Alfa. * 
Euphorbia, 248. 



Evergreen (holm) oak, Quercus 
Ilex, 201. 

Fig, Ficus Carica, 201, 226, 230. 
Frankincense tree, Boswellia spp., 
220, 221. 

Giraffe acacia (African camel 

thorn), Acacia girqffae, 242, 244. 
Gum acacia, Acacia arabica (Sene- 

galensis), 220. 
Guttifer shi butter (butter and 

tallow tree), Butyrospermum 

Par/en, 211,218,228. 

Holm oak, Quercus Ilex, 202. 
Indigo, Indigofera tinctoria, 221. 

Jujube tree, Zizyphus Jujuba, 203. 
Juniper, Juniperus spp., 219, 220, 
235. 

Karee boom, Erythrina tomentosa, 

244. 
Eat, Caltha edulis, 221. 

Lavender (Saharan), Lavandula 

coronipifolia, 200, 202. 
Lentiscus (Pistacia lentiscus), Mastic 

tree, 200. 

Leucactendron spp., Silver trees, 245. 
Lobelia, 235. 
Lucerne (alfalfa), Medicago satiia, 

201. 

Maize, Zea Mais, 201, 218. 
Mangrove, Avicennia nitida, Rhizo- 

phora mucronata, 227, 249. 
Mediterranean cypress, 246. 
Mimosa, 211, 228. 
Mopani tree (African iron wood), 

Copaifrra Mopani, 239. 
MyrrhyCommiphora myrrha,220,22l. 
Myrtle, 202. 

Nubian acacia, Acacia Senegalensis, 
215. 

Oak, Quercus spp. , 200. 
Oil palm, Elaeis guineensit, 211, 
226, 230. 



324 



PLANT INDEX 



Olive, Olea spp., 200, 201, 204, 

219. 
Oxalis spp., Wood sorrel, &c., 244. 

Pandanus spp., Screw pine, &e., 

250. 

Papyrus, Cyperus papyrus, 217. 
Pelargonium spp., Stork's bill, 244. 
Penntsetotwspp., Foxtail gras*, 209. 
Phoenician juniper, Juniperus 

Phoenicea, 204. 
Pine, Pinus spp., 244. 
Poa (jpratensis and trivialis), Meadow 

grass, 241. 
Podocarpus spp., Yellow wood, &c., 

219, 220, 281, 247. 



Strawberry tree, Arbutus Uncdo, 

202. 
Strelitzia spp., Phoenix tree, bottle 

tree, &c., 248. 
Sugar-cane, Saccharum cffidnarum, 

205, 213, 226, 231, 248. 
Syc&more,Acerpseudo~platanus,211. 

Tamarind, Tamarindus indica, 211, 

213. 

Tamarix spp., Tamarisk, 207. 
Thyme, 200. 
Tea (iron wood), Casuarina equise- 

tifolia, 
Tobacco, Nicotiana Tabacum, 201, 

248. 



Protea spp., Wagen boom, sugar Tree euphorbia,, 241, 242, 248. 



bush, &c., 245, 247. 

Raphia wine palm, Raphia vinifera, 

211. 
Ravenala (traveller's tree), Rave- 

nala madagascariensis, 250. 
Retain a, Thevetia nereifolia, 201, 

207. 

Rice, Oryza sativa, 226. 
Rosemary, Rosmarinus offidnalis, 

200. 
Rotaug palm (rattan), Calamus 

Rotang, 230. 
Rubber, Funtuma elastica, &c., 226, 

227, 230, 250. 



Sage brush. Artemisia tridentata. 

241. 

Saharan broom, 207. 
Salvadora, Tooth-brush tree, 221. 
Sanseviera spp., Fibre trees, 231. 
Sedge, Carexspp.j 217. 
Senna, Cassia spp., 221. 
Spurge, Euphorbia spp., 207. 
Sterculia spp.,Cola-nut tree,&c.,226 



Tree heath, Erica arborea, 200, 202, 

219, 220, 285. 
Tree senecio, giant groundsel, 

Senecio arborea, 235. 
Tusk thorn acacia, Acacia horrida, 

223, 242. 

Umbrella acacia, Acacia Oswaldi, 
223. 

Vine, Viti* vmifera, 201. 

Welwitschia, 242. 

West African mahogany, Khaya 

senegalennis, 226 
White artemisia, Artemisia Herba- 

alba, 205. 
White (deciduous) oak, Quercus 

alba, 200. 
WiddringtoniaWhytei, Mlanje cedar, 

246, 247. 



Yam, Dioscurea sativa, 226. 
Zollikoferia, 206. 
EUROPE 



Alder, Alnus spp., 268, 292. 
Alder, berry-bearing, see Elder, 
Aleppo pine, Pinus halepensis, 280, 



Anemone, 289. 
Apple, Pyrus malus, 275. 
Apricot, Prun&s Armeniaca, 
Aralia spp., Ginseng, &c., 296. 



Almond, Prunus Amygdalus, 275, Arolla, see Siberian stone 



282. 



pine. 



Andropogon spp., golden beard Ash, Fraxtyus spp., 289, 292. 



grass, &c., 287. 



Aspen, Populus tremulosa, 289. 



PLANT INDEX 



825 



Aucula japonica, variegated laurel, 
golden leaf, 296. 

Barley, Hordeum spp., 270. 
Beech, Fagus spp., 253, 277, 291, 

292, 298. 

Beet root, Beta spp., 275. 
Birch, Betula spp., 265, 289, 292. 
Black (Corsican) pine, Pinus Lari- 

cio, 274, 275, 280, 284. 
Blackthorn (sloe), Ptunus spinosa, 

274, 298. 

Bracken, Pteris aquilina, 268. 
Bramble (blackberry), Rubus 

fntticosus, 293. 
Broom, Cytisus scovarius. 

Camellia, 296. 

Carob (locust bean, algaroba), 

Ceratonia Siliqua, 280, 282. 
Cedar, Cedrus spp., 280, 282. 
Celtis australis, nettle tree, 280. 
Cherry, Cerasus spp., 277. 
Cherry laurel, Prunus Laurocerasus, 

258, 277, 296. 
Chestnut (sweet or Spanish), 

Castanea sativa, 277, 282, 289. 
Cistus, Rock rose, &c., 280. 
Clover, Medicago,Trifolium, &c.,271. 
Cochlearia spp., Scurvy grass, 265. 
Common juniper, Juniperus com- 

munis, 291. 

dork oak, Quercus Suber, 277. 
Corydalis spp., fumitory, 271. 
Cotoneaster, 277. 
Cotton, Glossypium spp., 282. 
Cotton grass, Eriophorum spp., 264. 
Cranberry, Oxy coccus palustris, 265. 
Crowberry, Empetrum nigrum, 266. 
Cypress, Cupressus spp., 280. 

Dogwood (cornel), Cornusspp.,293. 

Dwarf (common) juniper, Juni- 
perus communis, 265. 

Dwarf oak, Quercushumilis, 280,284. 

Dwarf palm (Spanish palmetto), 
Chamaerops humilis, 280. 

Dwarf pine, Pinus mughus, 280. 

Echinopsis, 272. 
Elder, Sambucus nigra, 292. 
Elm, Ulmus spp., 20, 289. 
Eryngo, sea holly, Eryvgium 
maritimum, 272. J 



Esparto, Stipa tenacissima, 282. 
Eumymua europaeus, Spindle tree, 

296. 
European larch ,Larix europaea t 2Q7. 

Feather (steppe) grass or thyra, 
Stipa pennata, 271. 273, 274, 287. 

Fig, Ficv.8 Carica. 277, 280. 282. 

Fir, Abies spp , 275, 277, 280. 

Flax (blue), Linwn usitatissinwm, 
271. 

Fritillary (snake's head), FritiUana 
Meleagris, 271. 

Fuchsia, 296. 

Qagea lutea, Yellow gage, 271. 
Garlic, Allium sativum, 271. 
Gean (wild cherry }, Cerasus. Avium, 

289. 
Golden beard grass, Andropogon 

Sorghum, 273. 

Grape vine, Vitis vinifera, 282.. 
Guelder rose, Viburnum Opulus, 293. 

Hawthorn, Crataegus Oxyacantha, 

298. 

Hazel nut, Corylus spp., 298. 
Heather, Erica spp., 28, 298 
Hedge mustard, Sisymbrium offici- 

nale, 271. 

Hemp, Cannabis sativa, 274. 
Herb Paris, Paris quadrifolia, 289. 
Holly, Ilex aguifolium, 258, 289, 

293, 296. 

Holm oak, see Ilex. 
Hornbeam, Carpinus spp., 278, 

275, 286. 
Horse chestnut, Aesculus Hippo- 

castanum, 277. 

Ilex (holm oak, evergreen oak), 

Quercus Ilex, 296. 
Iris spp., flags, 271. 

Judas tree, Cercia Siliquastrum, 280. 
Juniper, Juniperus spp., 264, 274, 
298, 299. 

Knapweed, Centaur ea, 272. 
Koeleria, 270. 

Larkspur, Delphinium Ajacis, 272. 
Laurel, Laurus noUlis, 277, 280, 
284, 296. 



326 



PLANT INDEX 



Lauristinus, Viburnum Tinus, 282, 

284, 296. 

Lemon, Citrus Limonum, 282. 
Lcntiscus, Pistacia Lentiscus, 280, 

284. 
Lily of the Valley, Convallaria 

majalis, 289. 

Lime, THia spp., 277, 289. 
Locust-bean, see Carob. 
Lucerne (alfalfa), Medicago sativa, 

282. 

Magnolia. 296. 

Maize, Zea Mais, 275, 282. 

Mallow, Malva spp., 272. 

Manna ash, Fraxinus ornus, 275, 

280, 286. 

Maple, Acer spp., 277, 286, 289. 
Melon, sugar, Cucumis Melo, 275. 
Melon, water, Citrullu? vulgaris, 

275. 

Mil]k vetch, Astragalus spp., 271. 
Mountain pine, Pinus Pumilio, 299. 
Mulberry, Morus spp., 275. 
Myrtle, Myrtis communis, 280, 284. 

Nonsuch, Medicago cupulina, 271. 
Norway spruce, Picea excelsa, 267, 
298. 

Oak, Quercus spp., 253, 274, 275, 
277, 280, 283, 286, 289, 291, 
292, 298. 

(Oak, common, Quercus Robur.) 

Oats, Avena spp., 270. 

Oleander, Nerium Oleander, 282, 
284. 

Olive, Olea spp., 280, 282. 

Orange, Citrus Aurantium, 282. 

Orchids, Orchis, &c., 289. 

Paliurus spp., Crown of thorns 

tree, &e., 284. 
Peach, Prunus Persica, 275. 
Peat moss, Sphagnum, 265. 
Pheasant's eye. Adonis autumnalis, 

277. 

Pine, Pinus spp., 277. 
Plane, Platanus spp., 275, 280. 
Plum, Prunus spp., 275. 
Poplar, Populus spp., 272, 289, 

292. 
Portugal laurel, Prunus lusitanica, 

296. 



Potato, Solanum tuberosum, 270. 
Primrose, Primula vulgaris, 289. 
Privet, Ligustrum vulgare, 296. 

Red poppy, Papaver Ehoeas, 271. 
Rhododendron, 277, 296. 
Rice, Oryza sativa, 282. 
Rosemary (old man), Rosmarinus 

officinatis, 280. 
Rowan (Mountain ash), Sorbus 

Aucuparia, 289. 
Rye, Secale cereale, 270. 

Scots pine, Pinus silvestris, 267, 

291, 299. 
Sea buckthorn, Hippophae rhamnoi- 

des, 293. 

Sedge, Carex spp., 278. 
Sheep's grass, Festuca ovina, 271. 
Siberian lir, see Siberian stone 

pine. 

Siberian larch, Larix sibirica, 267. 
Siberian spruce, Picea ajanensis, 

267. 
Siberian stone pine (arolla), Pinus 

Cembra, 267, 299. 
Silver fir, Abies pectinata, 298. 
Sloe, see Blackthorn. 
Solomon's Seal, Polygonatum multi- 

florum, 289. 
Spanish broom, Genista hispanica, 

284. 

Sphagnum, peat moss, 293. 
Spikenard, Nardostachys Jataman&i, 

272. 

Spruce, Picea spp., 277. 
Stone pine, Pinus pinea, 280. 
Strawberry tree, Arbutus Unedo, 

258, 284, 293. 
Sumac, Rhus spp., 277, 284. 

Terebinth (turpentine tree), Pista- 
cia Terebinthus, 280, 284. 

Thistle, Carduus spp., 272. 

Tobacco, Nicoliana Tabacum, 275, 
282. 

Tomato, Lycopersicum esculentum, 
275. * 

Tree heath, Erica arborea, 2$0, 
284. 

Tulip, Tulipa spp., 271. 

Vermuth (vformwood), Artemisia 
Absinthium, 272. 



PLANT INDEX 327 

Vine, Vitis mnifera, 274, 275. Wormwood (southern wood, &c.), 

Artemisia spp., 272, 273. 

Walnut, Juglans regia, 275, 277, Woodruff, Asperula spp. , 289. 

282, Wood-rush, Luzula spp., 289. 

Wheat, Tritwum sativum, 275, 282. Wood sorrel, Oxalis acetosella.289. 
Wild hyacinth, Scilla nonscripta, 

289. Yarrow, Achittea Millefolium, 271. 

Willow, Salix spp., 268, 272, 289, Yew, Taxus baccata, 258, 296. 299. 

292. 



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