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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The Chamaerops And The Date-Tree Flourish In The
Fertile Plains Of Murviedro, On The Coasts Of Genoa, And In
Provence, near Antibes, between the thirty-ninth and forty-fourth
degrees of latitude; a few trees of the latter species,
Planted
within the walls of the city of Rome, resist even the cold of 2.5
degrees below freezing point. But if the south of Europe as yet
only partially shares the gifts lavished by nature on the zone of
palms, the island of Teneriffe, situated on the parallel of Egypt,
southern Persia, and Florida, is adorned with the greater part of
the vegetable forms which add to the majesty of the landscape in
the regions near the equator.
On reviewing the different tribes of indigenous plants, we regret
not finding trees with small pinnated leaves, and arborescent
gramina. No species of the numerous family of the sensitive-plants
has migrated as far as the archipelago of the Canary Islands, while
on both continents they have been seen in the thirty-eighth and
fortieth degrees of latitude. On a more careful examination of the
plants of the islands of Lancerota and Forteventura, which are
nearest the coast of Morocco, we may perhaps find a few mimosas
among many other plants of the African flora.
The second zone, that of the laurels, comprises the woody part of
Teneriffe: this is the region of the springs, which gush forth
amidst turf always verdant, and never parched with drought. Lofty
forests crown the hills leading to the volcano, and in them are
found four species of laurel,* (* Laurus indica, L. foetens, L.
nobilis, and L. Til.
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