[Footnote 165: "In Europe, in Asia, in Africa, and even in South America, the primeval trees, however much their magnitude may arrest admiration, do not grow in the promiscuous style that prevails in the general character of the North American woods. Many varieties of the pine, intermingled with birch, maple, beech, oak, and numerous other tribes, branch luxuriantly over the banks of lakes and rivers, extend in stately grandeur along the plains, and stretch proudly up to the very summits of the mountains. It is impossible to exaggerate the autumnal beauty of these forests; nothing under heaven can be compared to its effulgent grandeur. Two or three frosty nights in the decline of autumn transform the boundless verdure of a whole empire into every possible tint of brilliant scarlet, rich violet, every shade of blue and brown, vivid crimson, and glittering yellow. The stern, inexorable fir tribes alone maintain their eternal somber green. All others, in mountains or in villages, burst into the most glorious vegetable beauty, and exhibit the most splendid and most enchanting panorama on earth."--M'Gregor, p. 79, 80. Mr. Weld says, "The varied hues of the trees at this season of the year (autumn) can hardly be imagined by those who never have had an opportunity of observing them; and, indeed, as others have often remarked before, were a painter to attempt to color a picture from them, it would be condemned in Europe as totally different from any thing that ever existed in nature."--Weld, p. 510. "I can only compare the brightness of the faded leaves, scarlet, purple, and yellow, to that of tulips."--Lyell's _America_, vol. i., p. 107.] [Footnote 166: See Appendix, No. XXVI. (see Vol II)] [Footnote 167: "One of the most striking features in the vegetation of Canada is the number of species belonging to the _genera_ Solidago, Aster, Quercus, and Pinus. It is also distinguished for the many plants contained in the Orders, or natural families--Grossulaceae, Onograceae, Hypericaceae, Aceraceae, Betulaceae, Juglandaceae, and Vacciniaceae; and for the presence of the peculiar families--Podophyllae, Sarraceniaceae, and Hydrophyllaceae. There is, on the contrary, the climate being considered, a remarkable paucity of Cruciferae and Umbelliferae, and, what is most extraordinary, a total absence of the genus Erica (heath),[168] which covers so many thousands of acres in corresponding latitudes in Europe. Mrs. Butler mentions, in her Journal, 'that some poor Scotch peasants, about to emigrate to Canada, took away with them some roots of the "bonny blooming heather," in hopes of making this beloved adorner of their native mountains the cheerer of their exile. The heather, however, refused to grow in the Canadian soil. The person who told me this said that the circumstance had been related to him by Sir Walter Scott, whose sympathy with the disappointment of these poor children of the romantic heather-land betrayed itself even in tears.'