32 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



a chaplain in the Swedish navy, brought home specimens of four flowering plants, which 

 Liun£eus described the following year in the first edition of his Species Plantarum (i. p. 82, 

 &c.) ; and under Aristida adscensionis he has the following observation : — " Habitat in 

 Insula adscensionis, una ex quatuor istius pauperrimce Florce plantis, quorum (1.) Sherardia 

 fruticosa ; (2.) Eup>horbia origanoides ; (3.) Portidaca." A comparison with the following 

 enumeration reveals the fact that Osbeck nearly, or perhaps quite, exhausted the indigenous 

 phanerogamic flora of the island ! Indeed, we have no positive proof that more than two 

 of the flowering plants are really indigenous. They are Hedyotis adscensionis {Sherardia 

 fruticosa), and Euphorbia origanoides ; both are endemic, and perhaps the remnant of a 

 flora that is extinct, save these two species, so far as the flowering plants are concerned ; 

 yet it should be remembered that they belong to very widely diffused genera. Among 

 vascular cryptogams there are two endemic ferns, namely, Nephrodium ascensionis and 

 Gymnogramme ascensionis, the former beiug most nearly allied to the endemic St Helena 

 species, and the latter not very different from the widely diffused Gymnogramme lepto- 

 phylla, and even nearer the American Gymnogramme chcerophylla. Iu 1867, Mr Baker 1 

 enumerated seven ferns as the total number then known to inhabit Ascension. In the 

 following enumeration are eleven species ; the additional ones being Blechnum australe, 

 Asplenium dentatum, Nephrodium molle, and Ophioglossum vulgatum. The first was sent 

 to Kew in 1875 by Mr Alex. Blake, without, as far as we have been able to ascertain, 

 direct evidence of its being wild in the island ; the second is given on the authority of 

 Bory ; 2 the third is almost ubiquitous in warm countries, and may have been carried with 

 some of the numerous plants introduced from time to time for cultivation, while the fourth 

 may be reckoned with the undoubtedly indigenous plants. On the whole, as Mr Baker 

 observes, the ferns of Ascension exhibit a want of any decided characteristic. Altogether, 

 however, the indigenous vegetation is so exceedingly meagre that it offers nothing for 

 consideration from a phyto-geographical standpoint, except a possible relation to the flora 

 of St Helena, briefly discussed below. Darwin 3 says: "Near the coast nothing grows ; 

 further inland an occasional green castor-oil plant, and a few grasshoppers, true friends of 

 the desert, may be met with. Some grass is scattered over the surface of the central 

 elevated region, and the whole much resembles the worse parts of the Welsh mountains. 

 But, scanty as the pasture appears, about six hundred sheep, many goats, a few cows and 

 horses, all thrive well on it." 



Wallace has merely a passing allusion to it in his Island Life; and Sir Joseph Hooker, 

 in his interesting essay on insular floras, 4 sums up the vegetation of Ascension in the 

 following short paragraph. "The islet of Ascension claims a passing notice; it is much 



1 Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond., xxvi. p. 347. 



2 In Duperr. Voy. " Coquille," Bot. Crypt., p. 270. 



3 Journal of Researches, p. 492. 



4 Lecture on Insular Floras, delivered before the British Association for the Advancement of Science at 



Nottingham m 1666. 



