Note 17 — PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

p. 22—“The form of Malvaceæ.”

Larger malvaceous forms begin to appear as soon as we have crossed the Alps; at Nice and in Dalmatia, Lavatera arborea; and in Liguria, Lavatera olbia. The dimensions of the Baobab, monkey-bread tree, have been mentioned above, (Vol. ii. p. 90.) To this form are attached the also botanically allied families of the Byttneriaceæ (Sterculia, Hermannia, and the large-leaved Theobroma Cacao, in which the flowers spring from the bark both of the trunk and the roots); the Bombaceæ (Adansonia, Helicteres, and Cheirostemon); and lastly the Tiliaceæ (Sparmannia Africana.) I may name more particularly as superb representatives of the Mallow-form, our Cavanillesia platanifolia, of Turbaco near Carthagena in South America, and the celebrated Ochroma-like Hand-tree, the Macpalxochiquahuitl of the Mexicans, (from macpalli, the flat hand), Arbol de las Manitas of the Spaniards, our Cheirostemon platanoides; in which the long curved anthers project beyond the fine purple blossom, causing it to resemble a hand or claw. Throughout the Mexican States this one highly ancient tree is the only existing individual of this extraordinary race: it is supposed to be a stranger, planted about five centuries ago by the kings of Toluca. I found the height above the sea where the Arbol de las Manitas stands to be 8280 French (8824 English) feet. Why is there only a single individual, and from whence did the kings of Toluca procure either the young tree or the seed? It seems no less difficult to account for Montezuma not having possessed it in his botanical gardens of Huaxtepec, Chapoltepec, and Iztapalapan, of which Hernandez, the surgeon of Philip II., was still able to avail himself, and of which some traces remain even to the present day; and it seems strange that it should not have found a place among the representations of objects of natural history which Nezahualcoyotl, king of Tezcuco, caused to be drawn half a century before the arrival of the Spaniards. It is asserted that the Hand-tree exists in a wild state in the forests of Guatimala. (Humboldt and Bonpland, Plantes équinoxiales, T. i. p. 82, pl. 24; Essai polit. sur la Nouv. Esp., T. i. p. 98.) At the equator we have seen two Malvaceæ, Sida Phyllanthos (Cavan), and Sida pichinchensis, ascend, on the mountain of Antisana and the Volcano Rucu-Pichincha, to the great elevations of 12600 and 14136 French (13430 and 15066 English) feet. (See our Plantes équin., T. ii. p. 113, pl. 116.) Only the Saxifraga boussingaulti (Brongn.) reaches, on the slope of the Chimborazo, an altitude six or seven hundred feet higher.