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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Wherever These
Lavas Are Scorified, And Where They Have A Shining Surface, As In
The Basaltic Mounds To The North Of Lancerota, The Development Of
Vegetation Is Extremely Slow, And Many Ages May Pass Away Before
Shrubs Can Take Root.
It is only when lavas are covered with tufa
and ashes, that the volcanic islands, losing that appearance of
nudity which marks their origin, bedeck themselves in rich and
brilliant vegetation.
In its present state, the island of Teneriffe, the Chinerfe* (* Of
Chinerfe the Europeans have formed, by corruption, Tchineriffe and
Teneriffe.) of the Guanches, exhibits five zones of plants, which
we may distinguish by the names - region of vines, region of
laurels, region of pines, region of the retama, and region of
grasses. These zones are ranged in stages, one above another, and
occupy, on the steep declivity of the Peak, a perpendicular height
of 1750 toises; while fifteen degrees farther north, on the
Pyrenees, snow descends to thirteen or fourteen hundred toises of
absolute elevation. If the plants of Teneriffe do not reach the
summit of the volcano, it is not because the perpetual snow and the
cold of the surrounding atmosphere mark limits which they cannot
pass; it is the scorified lava of the Malpays, the powdered and
barren pumice-stone of the Piton, which impede the migration of
plants towards the brink of the crater.
The first zone, that of the vines, extends from the sea-shore to
two or three hundred toises of height; it is that which is most
inhabited, and the only part carefully cultivated. In the low
regions, at the port of Orotava, and wherever the winds have free
access, the centigrade thermometer stands in winter, in the months
of January and February, at noon, between fifteen and seventeen
degrees; and the greatest heats of summer do not exceed twenty-five
or twenty-six degrees. The mean temperature of the coasts of
Teneriffe appears at least to rise to twenty-one degrees (16.8
degrees Reaumur); and the climate in those parts keeps at the
medium between the climate of Naples and that of the torrid zone.
The region of the vines exhibits, among its vegetable productions,
eight kinds of arborescent Euphorbia; Mesembrianthema, which are
multiplied from the Cape of Good Hope to the Peloponnesus; the
Cacalia Kleinia, the Dracaena, and other plants, which in their
naked and tortuous trunks, in their succulent leaves, and their
tint of bluish green, exhibit distinctive marks of the vegetation
of Africa. It is in this zone that the date-tree, the plantain, the
sugar-cane, the Indian fig, the Arum Colocasia, the root of which
furnishes a nutritive fecula, the olive-tree, the fruit trees of
Europe, the vine, and corn are cultivated. Corn is reaped from the
end of March to the beginning of May: and the culture of the
bread-fruit tree of Otaheite, that of the cinnamon tree of the
Moluccas, the coffee-tree of Arabia, and the cacao-tree of America,
have been tried with success.
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