The Southern region of the Cape of Good Hope is the country of the species of _Protea_, _Pelargonium_, _Epacridaceæ_, _Oxalis_, and _Ixia_, which decorate our hothouses and parterres. No other country can compare with this region for the prodigious abundance and dimensions of its heaths. While the plains of Europe, the Alps included, scarcely yield a dozen species, at the Cape there are many hundreds. They attain sometimes the height of fifteen or sixteen feet. Their leaves are small, inconspicuous, and acicular; but their flowers are large, and the colors which decorate them brilliant in the extreme, varying from the softest shades to dazzling ones. The flora of this region is rich in vegetable forms, but it is by no means smiling in its aspect. We find no true forests, grand and sombre, in the whole region; there are few creeping plants, but, on the other hand, there are many succulents. The most characteristic families are the _Restiaceæ_, _Iridaceæ_, _Proteaceæ_, _Ericaceæ_, _Mesembryanthaceæ_, _Rutaceæ_, _Gernaiaceæ_, _Oxalidaceæ_, and _Polygalaceæ_. Among the characteristic genera we may mention the _Ixia_; _Gladiolus_, with their sword-shaped leaves and party-colored flowers; _Strelitzia_, so remarkable for their inflorescence, and for their blue and yellow flowers; _Protea_, so named for their diversity of appearance; _Leucadendron_, of which one species, _L. argenteum_ (the silver-tree), rises to the height of from thirty to forty feet, its branches bearing lanceolate leaves, silky and silvery; _Helichrysum_ and _Gnaphalium_, corymbiferous composites, better known as _Immortelles_; _Mesembryanthemum_, or ice-plants; _Stapelia_, leafless asclepiads, with angular fleshy stem and showy flowers, but somewhat fœtid odor; _Phylica_, a genus of Rhamnads somewhat resembling heaths, with abundant evergreen foliage and small cottony heads of white flowers; _Pelargonium_, of which an infinite variety of forms, the result of culture, are known; _Oxalis_, the evergreen _Sparmannia_, whose white flowers, stamens with purple filaments and irritable anthers, are so ornamental in orangeries. It is upon the sandy coast of this curious botanical region that the species of _Stapelia_, _Iridaceæ_, _Mesembryanthemum_, and _Diosma_ abound. The heaths and crassulas grow upon the slopes of the mountains. The cultivated plants are the cereals, most of the fruits and vegetables of Europe, the sorghum of Kaffirland, yam, banana, tamarind, and guava. Vegetation is richer and more varied in America than in any other part of the globe. Beginning with North America, we find its polar vegetation quite analogous to that of Europe and Asia under the same latitudes. The willow, birch, and poplar, exposed to the persistent action of the cold, become stunted bushes; and saxifrages, mosses, and lichens prevail.