Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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In
Using This Expression, It Is Tacitly Admitted, That Under The
Influence Of Certain Temperatures, Certain Vegetable Forms Must
Necessarily Be Developed.
Such a supposition, however, taken in all
its generality, is not strictly accurate.
The pines of Mexico are
wanting on the Cordilleras of Peru. The Silla of Caracas is not
covered with the oaks which flourish in New Grenada at the same
height. Identity of forms indicates an analogy of climate; but in
similar climates the species may be singularly diversified.
The charming rhododendron of the Andes (the befaria) was first
described by M. Mutis, who observed it near Pamplona and Santa Fe
de Bogota, in the fourth and seventh degree of north latitude. It
was so little known before our expedition to the Silla, that it was
scarcely to be found in any herbal in Europe. The learned editors
of the Flora of Peru had even described it under another name, that
of acunna. In the same manner as the rhododendrons of Lapland,
Caucasus, and the Alps* (* Rhododendron lapponicum, R. caucasicum,
R. ferrugineum, and R. hirsutum.) differ from each other, the two
species of befaria we brought from the Silla* (* Befaria glauca, B.
ledifolia.) are also specifically different from that of Santa Fe
and Bogota.* (* Befaria aestuans, and B. resinosa.) Near the
equator the rhododendrons of the Andes (Particularly B. aestuans of
Mutis, and two new species of the southern hemisphere, which we
have described under the name of B. coarctata, and B. grandiflora.)
cover the mountains as far as the highest paramos, at sixteen and
seventeen hundred toises of elevation. Advancing northward, on the
Silla de Caracas, we find them much lower, a little below one
thousand toises. The befaria recently discovered in Florida, in
latitude 30 degrees, grows even on hills of small elevation. Thus
in a space of six hundred leagues in latitude, these shrubs descend
towards the plains in proportion as their distance from the equator
augments. The rhododendron of Lapland grows also at eight or nine
hundred toises lower than the rhododendron of the Alps and the
Pyrenees. We were surprised at not meeting with any species of
befaria in the mountains of Mexico, between the rhododendrons of
Santa Fe and Caracas, and those of Florida.
In the small grove which crowns the Silla, the Befaria ledifolia is
only three or four feet high. The trunk is divided from its root
into a great many slender and even verticillate branches. The
leaves are oval, lanceolate, glaucous on their inferior part, and
curled at the edges. The whole plant is covered with long and
viscous hairs, and emits a very agreeable resinous smell. The bees
visit its fine purple flowers, which are very abundant, as in all
the alpine plants, and, when in full blossom, they are often nearly
an inch wide.
The rhododendron of Switzerland, in those places where it grows, at
the elevation of between eight hundred and a thousand toises,
belongs to a climate, the mean temperature of which is +2 and-1
degrees, like that of the plains of Lapland. In this zone the
coldest months are-4, and-10 degrees: the hottest, 12 and 7
degrees. Thermometrical observations, made at the same heights and
in the same latitudes, render it probable that, at the Pejual of
the Silla, one thousand toises above the Caribbean Sea, the mean
temperature of the air is still 17 or 18 degrees; and that the
thermometer keeps, in the coolest season, between 15 and 20 degrees
in the day, and in the night between 10 and 12 degrees. At the
hospital of St. Gothard, situated nearly on the highest limit of
the rhododendron of the Alps, the maximum of heat, in the month of
August at noon, in the shade, is usually 12 or 13 degrees; in the
night, at the same season, the air is cooled by the radiation of
the soil down to +1 or-1.5 degrees. Under the same barometric
pressure, consequently at the same height, but thirty degrees of
latitude nearer the equator, the befaria of the Silla is often, at
noon, in the sun, exposed to a heat of 23 or 24 degrees. The
greatest nocturnal refrigeration probably never exceeds 7 degrees.
We have carefully compared the climate, under the influence of
which, at different latitudes, two groups of plants of the same
family vegetate at equal heights above the level of the sea. The
results would have been far different, had we compared zones
equally distant, either from the perpetual snow, or from the
isothermal line of 0 degrees.* (* The stratum of air, the mean
temperature of which is 0 degrees, and which scarcely coincides
with the superior limit of perpetual snow, is found in the parallel
of the rhododendrons of Switzerland at nine hundred toises; in the
parallel of the befarias of Caracas, at two thousand seven hundred
toises of elevation.)
In the little thicket of the Pejual, near the purple-flowered
befaria, grows a heath-leaved hedyotis, eight feet high; the
caparosa,* which is a large arborescent hypericum (* Vismia
caparosa (a loranthus clings to this plant, and appropriates to
itself the yellow juice of the vismia); Davallia meifolia, Heracium
avilae, Aralia arborea, Jacq., and Lepidium virginicum. Two new
species of lycopodium, the thyoides, and the aristatum, are seen
lower down, near the Puerto de la Silla.); a lepidium, which
appears identical with that of Virginia; and lastly, lycopodiaceous
plants and mosses, which cover the rocks and roots of the trees.
That which gives most celebrity in the country to the little
thicket, is a shrub ten or fifteen feet high, of the corymbiferous
family. The Creoles call it incense (incienso).* (* Trixis
nereifolia of M. Bonpland.) Its tough and crenate leaves, as well
as the extremities of the branches, are covered with a white wool.
It is a new species of Trixis, extremely resinous, the flowers of
which have the agreeable odour of storax. This smell is very
different from that emitted by the leaves of the Trixis
terebinthinacea of the mountains of Jamaica, opposite to those of
Caracas.
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