liv INTRODUCTION. 
this was done the Germans have botanically explored South Georgia *, where thirteen 
species of flowering plants were collected, nine of which are common to the eastern 
_ part of the Antarctic Flora, from Kerguelen to the islands south of New Zealand; four 
of them reach New Zealand itself, and one (Colobanthus subulatus) the Alps of 
Australia. 
In Fuegia the beech-woods (consisting mainly of the deciduous-leaved Fagus antarctica 
and the evergreen F. betuloides) are a conspicuous feature; but all the islands are 
absolutely treeless, except the Auckland group, where there is an arboreous Myrtacea 
(Metrosideros lucida) and two or three other large shrubs or small trees. But the 
beech element in the southern hemisphere is one of the most interesting, and it is very 
fully described by Hooker +. In the northern hemisphere Fagus sylvatica inhabits 
Europe, Asia Minor, Northern Persia, and Japan, but is not known to occur in the 
intervening country; and the eastern North-American F. ferruginea is exceedingly 
near it, so near, Indeed, as to be regarded by some botanists as a variety. Besides 
these there is a Japanese species recently described by Maximowicz}, which strongly 
resembles F, sylvatica in foliage, though it is very different in the fruit. Japan, 
Northern Persia, North Italy, and Florida.are the southern limits of the genus Fagus 
in the northern hemisphere, where it is represented by at most three species. In the 
southern hemisphere, on the other hand, there are at least a dozen distinct species 
divided between South America, New Zealand, Tasmania, and the mountains of 
Victoria and N. S. Wales, with a maximum development in New Zealand and extra- 
tropical South-west America. In continental Australia the genus is represented by 
two isolated outlying endemic species, one occurring at the head of the Macleay river 
in about 31° of latitude, and the other on the Yarra-Yarra in about 37° 30’; and in 
America F. obliqua inhabits the Andes in as low a latitude as 33°. Between these 
stations and the northern ones indicated above there is no living trace of the genus 9. 
The foregoing particulars concerning these two widely separated northern and southern 
races of Fagus are given as another illustration of the intimate relationships existing 
between the northern and southern Floras, because the genus is so distinct and sharply 
defined that there can be no question about the generic identity of the two races, and 
because Fagus is the only genus of the characteristic northern Cupulifere that reaches 
high southern latitudes. Quercus reaches New Guinea in the east, and Popayan (about 
2° 30’ N. lat.) in America. The allied Salicinese (Populus and Salix) also do not reach 
* See Engler, Jahrbiicher, vii. p. 281, and ‘ Nature,’ xxxiv. p. 106. 
+ Flora Antarctica, p. 345. 
+ Mélanges Biologiques, xii. p. 542. 
§ Fagus argentea and F. gavanica, enumerated in Steudel’s ‘Nomenclator Botanicus,’ attributed to Blume 
and recorded from Java, were probably manuscript names given by Blume to some sterile specimens of 
Castanopsis. He himself does not mention them in his ‘Cupulifere Javanica,’ nor does Miquel in his 
‘Flora Indie Batave,’ and it is almost absolutely certain that no species of Fagus exists in Java. 
