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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Even When Nature Does Not Produce The Same Species In Analogous
Climates, Either In The Plains Of Isothermal Parallels,* (We
May
compare together either latitudes which in the same hemisphere
present the same mean temperature (as, for instance, Pennsylvania
and
The central part of France, Chile and the southern part of New
Holland); or we may consider the relations that may exist between
the vegetation of the two hemispheres under isothermal parallels.)
or on table-lands, the temperature of which resembles that of
places nearer the poles,* we still remark a striking resemblance of
appearance and physiognomy in the vegetation of the most distant
countries. (* The geography of plants comprises not merely an
examination of the analogies observed in the same hemisphere; as
between the vegetation of the Pyrenees and that of the Scandinavian
plains; or between that of the Cordilleras of Peru and of the
coasts of Chile. It also investigates the relations between the
alpine plants of both hemispheres. It compares the vegetation of
the Alleghanies and the Cordilleras of Mexico, with that of the
mountains of Chile and Brazil. Bearing in mind that every
isothermal line has an alpine branch (as, for instance, that which
connects Upsala with a point in the Swiss Alps), the great problem
of the analogy of vegetable forms may be defined as follows: 1st,
examining in each hemisphere, and at the level of the coasts, the
vegetation on the same isothermal line, especially near convex or
concave summits; 2nd, comparing, with respect to the form of
plants, on the same isothermal line north and south of the equator,
the alpine branch with that traced in the plains; 3rd, comparing
the vegetation on homonymous isothermal lines in the two
hemispheres, either in the low regions, or in the alpine regions.)
This phenomenon is one of the most curious in the history of
organic forms.
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