

10 . ME. G. BENTHAM ON THE 



pears to have been chiefly in the extreme east over the Indo- 

 Australian region with much less of modification of their original 

 southern character than in America. The Asiatic Lobeliese have 

 remained within the limits of the two widely spread genera Pratia 

 and Lobelia, slightly modified as they enter or pass the tropics, 

 in a manner corresponding to that observed in Brazil, but with- 

 out any tendency to the marked endemic groups of Western 

 America. Thus, in JPratia, the Himalayan P. begonicefolia is, as 

 above-mentioned, a close representative of the Brazilian P. Jiede- 

 racea. The P. montana, from the Archipelago and eastern pro- 

 vinces of India (Spirema, Hook. f. et Thorns.), is an endemic mo- 

 dification, but scarcely generic, diverging in habit, but much less 

 in character than the New-Zealand Colensoa. The genus Lobelia 

 itself has preserved much of the southern type in some species 

 both of Hemipogon and Holopogon, but has also, by somewhat 

 gradual modifications, developed in considerable variety the tall 

 herbaceous JRhynchopetalum forms, sometimes nearly counterparts 

 of the Brazilian thapsoid species, and ranging across the Asiatic 

 continent and to the islands of the China seas. 



There has also been some extension of the tribe northwards 

 along the extreme west of the Old World : one or two represen- 

 tatives of South- African types (Laurentia Michelii, DC, and L. 

 tenellciy DC.) are now very rare in the Mediterranean region ; 

 another (L. urens) extends along Western France to Britain, but 

 has been unable to penetrate eastward. From this L. urens in 

 the extreme west of Europe to the L. sessilifolia in the extreme 

 east of Asia, a continuous expanse of land nearly half encircling 

 the globe, there is not to the north of the great Alpine Caucasian 

 and Himalayan line a single trace of the tribe. 



L. Dortmanni, an aquatic species of North-western Europe, may, 

 like the JEriocaulon and others, have come over from North Ame- 

 rica. With regard to the Lobelice of the tthynchopetalum group 

 in tropical Africa we have not sufficient data to form any opinion 

 as to their origin. They are perhaps more likely to be slightly 

 modified Asiatic species than endemic developments of the more 

 distant South-African forms. 



Lobeliese must also have found their way very early to the 

 distant islands of the Atlantic and Pacific ; for they have there 

 generated special endemic forms with the usual insular cha- 

 racter of a ligneous development of races more generally her- 

 baceous. Thus they have produced the Trimeris (Lobelia sect.) 













