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FLORA. 
By W. Bortine Hemstey, LL.D., F.R.S. 
_ Since the publication of the Appendix and Introduction to the “Botany” of the 
‘Biologia Centrali-America,’ in 1888, botanical explorers have been very active, not 
only within our limits and in the contiguous countries, but also more especially in 
Africa and Eastern Asia, from Burma and China, southward and eastward, through the 
Malayan Archipelago to the Philippines, New Guinea, and Fiji. 
The addition of new species to the Central American Flora is enormous, especially 
from Mexico and Guatemala*. Of new genera, established on newly discovered 
types, there are relatively few; but very many new genera have been founded by 
the segregation of old and familiar genera. 
Notable among the discoveries in tropical and subtropical districts are additional 
genera and species of southern types or families, belonging to the Vochysiacee, 
Trigoniacee, Lecythidacez, Lauracee, Kuphorbiacee, Artocarpacee, etc., etc. 
The identification of Schlechtendal’s Mexican genus Juliania, the discovery of 
several new species of this genus, and the founding of the family Julianiacew, including 
the exceedingly rare and imperfectly known Peruvian monotypical Orthopterygium, 
constitute a most interesting botanical contribution. 
But, taken on the whole, the internal discoveries throw no further light on phyto- 
geography than we possessed in 1888. So little was known of the natural history of 
Lower California that it was not included in the ‘ Biologia,’ though politically and 
geographically belonging to Mexico. It has since been sufficiently explored, as well 
as the outlying islands of Guadalupe, the Revillagigedo Group, and others, to reveal 
the characteristics of the vegetation and flora, which are essentially Sonoran, with an 
intermixture in the north of Upper Californian species. The endemic element, alike 
in the Peninsula and the Islands, is of no greater proportion than that of the adjacent 
mainland. American botanists have devoted much time to the investigation of the 
vegetation of North Mexico and of the States and Territories north-west of Mexico 
with extremely interesting results, emphasising the distinct origin of the Pacific and 
Atlantic floras. | 
* We have no statistics, except those kindly furnished for Guatemala by Captain John Donnell Smith, 
who, in his own publications, has added eighty-four genera and 1224 species not included in the ‘ Biologia.’ 
Eleven of the genera and 488 of the species are new. It may, however, be safely assumed that about 
2000 genera of flowering plants are represented in Central America by at least 15,000 species.—W. B. H. 
BIOL. CENTR.-AMER., Introd. Vol., June 1916. | U 
