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

  • John Barton
Date:
1827
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

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    eastern hemisphere *. From the territories of the United States we have received some of the most beautiful of the family of Bog-plants, Magnolias, Rhododendrons, Azaleas, and Kal- mias. The Magnolia grandiflor a, whose north- ern limit, according to Humboldt, is in latitude 35i°t, has been denominated the most admira- ble production of the vegetable world: it is an evergreen, bearing a leaf not unlike a laurel, but larger, with white flowers five or six inches in diameter, of delicious fragrance. From North America comes likewise the Aloe\, distinguish- ed by its long, thick, fleshy leaves, furnished with thorns at the points and along the edges. It blooms only once, the plant dying after it has completed its fructification, as happens with our annuals and biennials; but, instead of coming to maturity in one or two years, it requires a very long period for its growth: according to the vul- gar opinion, a hundred years: but this appears to be an exaggeration. When the time for its blooming arrives, a flower-stem rapidly pushes * Humboldt: Geographie der Pflanzen, p. 89, “It seems,” says the author, “as if nature had laboured to adorn the Land of Freedom.” + Prolegomena, p. 44. J Agave Americana. D 5