A lecture on the geography of plants / By John Barton.

  • John Barton
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on the geography of plants / By John Barton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    not produce fruit on the northern side of the Mediterranean. It may perhaps be asserted, without exaggeration, that the appearance of vegetation exhibits a less striking change in travelling northwards from Piedmont to Lap- land, than in crossing the Maritime Alps from Piedmont to the Gulf of Genoa. On the south- ern side of those mountains, the vivid green of our meadows and forests is replaced by the dusky tint of the Olive and the Evergreen Oak, which might, perhaps, be termed sombre, if not contrasted with the intensely dark indigo colour of a deep and tranquil sea, undisturbed by tides, and resting on a rocky bottom;-—on the other side with the snow-crowned summits of the mountains, strongly relieved against the azure sky; the whole illuminated by the splendour of an Italian sun. Nor is the Olive itself by any means destitute of beauty. It has been compared to a Willow: it differs, however, very materially in its colour, having none of that sickly hue of blueish green which gives such a peculiar coldness to the landscapes of some of the Dutch painters. The upper side of the leaf has pre- cisely that tint familiarly known by the name of olive: the under side is of shining whiteness; and as the foliage is turned up by the lightest breeze, its progress over the valleys covered with Olive gardens, becomes visible in the form
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