THE 



VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



BOTANY. 



REPORT on the Botany of the Bermudas and various other Islands of the 

 Atlantic and Southern Oceans. By W. Botting Hemsley, A.L.S. 



SECOND PART. 



ST PAUL'S ROCKS. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTES. 



These rocks lie in about 29° W. long, and 1° N. lat., and are about 540 miles distant 

 from the coast of South America, and 350 miles from the island of Fernando-Noronha. 

 They are scarcely more than half a mile in circumference, and their highest point is only 

 sixty-four feet above sea-level. The group resembles a horse-shoe in shape, and consists of 

 five peaks of rock disposed in four principal masses ; and the rocks have been classed as 

 serpentine. 1 They support absolutely no vegetation beyond a few algse. Various travellers 

 have landed, though even in ordinary weather there is some difficulty in doing so, in 

 consequence of the great rapidity of the current on the one side and the heavy swell in 

 the most sheltered parts. Mr Moseley appears to be the only person who has collected 

 what the rocks offer in the form of vegetable life, and his account of the visit of the 

 expedition in the Journal of the Linnean Society of London (xiv. p. 354), which is here 

 reproduced, embodies all that is known of their botany : — 



" Darwin, in his Naturalist's Voyage, describes the utterly barren condition of St Paul's Rocks 

 as far as vegetation is concerned, not even a single lichen having been found by him. He speaks 



1 For a full account of the Petrology of these Kocks, see Narr. Chall. Exp., vol. ii., Appendix B. ; and 

 vol. i. chap. vi. 



(bot. chall. bxp. — part il — 1884.) B 1 



