v e g e - Bay or the Southern extremity, -which there grows in the lowefl
T A B L E
k i n g d o m Part the country, dwindles to a fmall inconfiderable fhrtib at
Queen Charlotte's Sound, or the Northern end, where it is only
feen on the highelt mountains. A fimilarity offituationand climate
Fometimes produces a fimilarity o f vegetation, and this is the reafóiï
why the .cold mountains o f T ierra del F uego produce lèverai plants^
which in Europe are the inhabitants o f Lapland, the Pyrenees, and
the Alps.
I I I . .. Y A R I E . T Y .
Th e difference o f foil and climate, caufes more varieties in thé tró-?
pical plants o f the Southern ifles, than in any other. Nothing is more
-common in the tropical ifles,. than two, three, 'four, or more
varieties o f the fame plant, o f which, the extremes fometimes,
might have formed new fpecies, i f we had not known the intermediate
ones, which connected them, and plainly fhewed the gradation.
In all thefe circumftances, I have always found that the parts molt
fubjedt to variation, were the leaves, hairs, and number o f flower
ftalks, (pedunculi) and that the fhape and whole contents o f the
flower ( partes frudtificationis ) were always the molt confiant.
T h is however, like all other rules, is not without exceptions, and
varieties arifing from foil fometimes cattle differences even there,
but they are too flight to .be noticed. A cold climate, or a high
6 ' expofore
expofure fhrinks a tree intoafhrub, -and vice verfa. A fandy or v e g e -
' ' • TABLE
rocky ground produces fucculent leaves, and gives them to KINGD0M
plants, which, in a rich foil have them thin and -flaccid. A plant
which is perfedly hairy in a dry foil, lofes all its-roughhefs,. when
it is found in a moifter fituation : and this frequently caufes the
difference between ‘Varieties of the fame fpecies in the -Friendly
•Ifles, and in the hills o f the Society Ifles: - for the-former, not bein
g very high, are lefs moift than the hills o f the latter, which
are frequently covered with milts and clouds.
IV . C U L T I V A T I O N .
T h a t cultivation caufes great varieties in plants, has been obferved
Tong.fince, and can no where be better feen than in the tropical
: South Sea ifles, where the bread-fruit tree fartocarpus communis)_
'alone, has four or five varieties; and the D r a c e e n a t e r m in a l i -s
L inn,, tw o ; the T a c c a , in its cultivated flate, has quite a different
appearance from the wild one, and the plantane, or nrnfa paradifiaca,
varies almoft m infinitum -like biir apple. Th e vegetable-kingdom
furnifhes the natives o f the tropical lands in the. South Sea, with
the greateft part of their food, their clothing, their dwelling,
furniture, and every convenience. In New Zeeland, the natives
dive chiefly on fifh,. and the fpontaneous plants furnifh .them with
A a veflments,