2G0 TIIE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



botany of the two islands. This was based upon a small collection of plants, in the 

 herbarium of the British Museum, from St Paul Island made by Sir George Staunton on 

 Macartney's voyage in 1793, previously described by Eeichardt in the place cited from a 

 duplicate set in the Vienna Herbarium ; a more extensive collection made by MacGillivray 

 and Milne in 1853, and Beichardt's published enumeration of the plants collected in the 

 same island in 1857 by the naturalists of the "Novara" Expedition. Only three plants 

 were then known from Amsterdam Island — namely, the Phjlica, and the fern plucked by 

 Commodore Goodenough in 1873, and Spartina arundinacea, identified by the Austrians, 

 who landed, but were unable to penetrate into the interior of the island. In 1873, a 

 French expedition for the observation of the transit of Venus took up its station on 

 Amsterdam Island, and the naturalists appear to have thoroughly explored the island, 

 though only portions of the botany have yet been published. But a set of the plants 

 collected by them having been communicated to the Kew Herbarium, we have included 

 them in the following enumeration. It is possible that this set was not a full one ; and if 

 this be the case, our list is incomplete. From the notes accompanying the plants collected 

 by the French naturalists, it would appear that the Phylica is not so abundaut as in the 

 time of Labillardiere and Staunton. In Macartney's Embassy to China, i. p. 226, we find 

 the following passage : — " St Paul's [now called Amsterdam], or the island lying in sight, 

 and to the northward of Amsterdam [now called St Paul's], differed in appearance 

 materially from the latter. ... It was overspread with shrubs and trees of middling size." 

 The French note that it formed small woods in 1873. It is noteworthy that this tree does 

 not occur in St Paul Island, though it is so near Amsterdam, and covered all over, as Sir 

 G. Staunton states, with a fine mould — that is, humus. Spartina arundinacea covers 

 broad tracts in Amsterdam, growing in thickets as impenetrable as the densest virgin 

 forests. In St Paul Island it is soattered, and not very abundant. Curiously enough, in 

 a note on the vegetation of Amsterdam Island, Mr Velain does not mention Spartina', 

 yet he states that Scirpus nodosus grows to the height of a man, and so close together 

 that it is very tiring to push through it. 1 We suspect a slip of the pen here. 



Composition of the Vegetation. 



A comparison of the table given below w T ith that exhibiting the flora of Tristan da 

 Cunha, reveals strong points of resemblance not shared by Eerguelen and the other islands 

 in higher latitudes, although the latter are nearer to Tristan and Amsterdam than these 

 are to each other. 



1 Vegetation du Globe, Grisobacli ct Tcliibatchef, L p. 819. 



