FERNANDO-NORONHA AND CONTIGUOUS ISLETS. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTES. 



Previously to the visit of the Challenger Expedition little was known of the botany of 

 Fernando-Noronha, and from circumstances explained below Mr Moseley was only able 

 to bring away specimens of a small number of plants. 



In the Appendix to Webster's narrative of Captain Foster's voyage in the " Chanti- 

 cleer" 1 are some general observations on the vegetation of the island, but nothing exact. 

 It was also one of the places at which H.M.S. "Beagle" touched, aud Mr Darwin 

 mentions 2 one or two of the more striking trees, &c. He also dried specimens of about a 

 dozen of the plants met with, which he gave to the late Professor Henslow. They are now 

 in the Herbarium of Cambridge University, aud through the kindness of Professor 

 Babington we have been able to examine them. Two of them, Oxalis noronhce and 

 Pisonia darwinii, were undescribecl, and are apparently endemic. The former was also 

 collected by Mr Moseley. Altogether, Mr Moseley collected about fifty species of flower- 

 ing plants, and had not the Governor withdrawn his permission to collect on the main 

 island, the collection would have been much larger. It is large enough, however, to give 

 a correct idea of the composition of the flora. With the exception of the two plants 

 named above and Cereus insularis, Gonolobics micranthus, and Ficus noronhce, which we 

 have not been able to match with any continental forms, almost every one is exceedingly 

 common in Tropical America, if it has no wider range of distribution. The four new 

 species collected by Mr Moseley are all from an outlying islet, St Michael's Mount, and 

 not from the main island ; and one of them, as already mentioned, was collected by Mr 

 Darwin, most likely in Fernando-Noronha itself. Judging, then, from the sample we 

 have seen, the flora is wholly Tropical American, with no greater infusion of peculiar 

 species than would be found in a similar area on the mainland. The new species exhibit 

 no striking characteristics; and it is not probable that further exploration would lead 

 to the discovery of a specially insular endemic element ; for Mr Moseley believes that he 

 nearly exhausted the flora of St Michael's Mount. A surprising and noteworthy feature 

 in the flora is the apparently total absence of ferns and mosses. 



1 Voyage of the " Chanticleer," London, 1834. 2 Journal of Researches, 2d ed., p. 11. 



(bot. chall. exp. — part iz — 1884.) B 2 



