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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    from human habitation, Humboldt found the ground covered with the fruit of these trees, in places to the depth of three inches*. More than twelve thousand flowers have been counted in a single sheath of the Date Palm. At the nursery of Messrs. Loddidge, at Hackney, may he seen a very fine collection of this family of plants, in a hot-house forty feet in height, con- structed expressly for their reception. I have already mentioned the Date Palm •(*, of which a few trees are to be seen on the southern side of Europe. Its appropriate place of growth is, however, on the other side of the Mediterranean. According to Humboldt, it flourishes best in a mean temperature of from 70° to 73°. In Africa, Egypt, Syria, and Ara- bia, it is abundantly found; and its fruit, of the size of a small plum, of a yellow colour, and sweet taste, furnishes the inhabitants with a principal part of their food. In the wide sandy deserts of these countries, a few Palm-trees often mark out from a distance to the thirsty traveller the situation of a solitary well. An- other kind of Palm, growing principally in the East Indian islands, yields sago, a commodity well known in our shops, and universally em- ployed as an article of food by the people of