544 MR. G. BENTHAM ON COMPOSIT2. 
The chief characteristic tribes of the region are, as in the Medi- 
terranean:—first, the Cynaroides ; secondly, the Cichoriacez; and, 
thirdly, the Anthemides. Beyond that the sequence is different. 
Senecionidex, Asteroidez, and Gnaphalioid Inuloidee are richer 
in species, though not in genera, than in the Mediterranean region, 
Owing either to the mountainous character or to the American 
connexion of their genera ; whilst the Mediterranean subtribes of 
Tnuloidex are much reduced in the Europso-Asiatie region. The 
connexion with America gives also a few more species of Eupa- 
toriaces ; and the above-mentioned Mutisiaces are unrepresented 
in the Mediterranean. The other American or southern tribes are 
again insignificantly represented in or totally absent from the 
Europ:zeo-Asiatie region. 
Fewer additions may be expected to be made to the Composite 
of this region than to those of perhaps any other, although many 
corrections will have to be made to the figures of the preceding 
Table when the rich materials accumulated at Kew shall have 
been worked up for the Indian flora, and when Maximoviez will 
have concluded the revision he has so well begun of the principal 
Composite genera of North-eastern Asia. 
3. Tropical- African Region. 
In respect of geographical distribution tropical Africa is one of 
the most interesting regions for investigation in its Composite 
as in other orders, though with some differences. It is essentially 
a connecting region, one which, besides its present adjoining 
neighbours, gives indications of ancient connexions now so com- 
pletely broken off by wide impassable intervals as to leave us to 
very vague guesses only of how such ancient connexions could 
have been effected. We have examined already into its corre- 
spondenee with tropical America in Composite genera and repre- 
sentative species, of which examples might be produced from 
other orders. The occurrence, however, of identical genera and 
closely representative species in tropical Africa and Australia 
observed among arborescent Cæsalpineæ, Mimoseæ, Malvacee, Ke. 
has not been verified in Composite. Whether or not this is any 
ways the result of the rarity of the arborescent plant-form in 
Composite is a matter of mere conjecture. The more immediate 
connexions are with the Indian or tropical-Asiatic region tothe east, 
and with the two rieh Composite regions, the Mediterranean to 
north and the South-African to the south. In itself tropical Africa 
