REPORT ON THE LOTANY OF JUAN FERNANDEZ AND MASAFUERA. 23 



rwpicolus, Grwphalium insulare, and Polypodivm masafuerce, but from the descriptions 

 they are not markedly distinct from Juan Fernandez forms. Of the remarkable Eryngium 

 sarcophyllum, there are only Cuming's specimens at Kew. 



Concluding Remarks on the Flora of Juan Fernandez and Masafuera. 



Although there is a disproportionately large endemic element, both generic and specific, 

 in the vegetation of this island, its general affinities are decidedly Chilian, as an examina- 

 tion of the table (pp. 20, 21) will prove; and the number of genera common to the Tasmanian 

 and New Zealand region and South America, represented in the island, strengthens the 

 opinion, advanced elsewhere, that formerly the vegetation of each of the southern cold and 

 temperate zones was essentially of the same composition throughout. Numerous other facts 

 might be adduced in support of this theory, and there is one that strikes us as beinf 

 strongly conclusive — namely, the generic identity of the principal trees of the existing 

 colder forests of the two regions. Beech (Fagus) forests of different, though closely allied 

 species, are as characteristic of New Zealand, Tasmania, and some parts of the mountains 

 of temperate Australia as they are of Southern Chili and Patagonia. Furthermore, the 

 Coniferous genera are the same in the two regions. Thus, the essential characters of the 

 Diselma of Tasmania and Fitzroya of South America are said to be the same in the latest 

 revision of the genera in Bentham and Hooker's Genera Plantarum, where the former is 

 merged in the latter. Further, Libocedrus, Dacrydium, and Araucaria are all three 

 represented in the Australasian and South American regions. 



But in Juan Fernandez, as in St Helena, it is the endemic genera that offer the 

 greatest difficulties to the botanical geographer; indeed, there are strong features of 

 resemblance in the endemic genera as well as some of the species of the two islands — the 

 genera of Composite and the species of Wahlenbergia are examples. We propose discus- 

 sing the affinities and distribution of arboreous Composite in our general introduction ; 

 therefore we shall not enter into full particulars here, and only repeat what we have said of 

 the St Helena arboreous plants belonging to this and other natural orders, that they are 

 not specially insular, though they form so large a proportion of the floras of St Helena, 

 Juan Fernandez, the Sandwich Islands, and some other islands. There are scores of them 

 in South America, Africa, Madagascar, India, and Australia, from twenty to forty feet 

 high, and more truly arboreous than the insular ones ; and there are a few even taller. It 

 is noteworthy that there are arboreous representatives of nearly every tribe or suborder of 

 the Cornpositse. Like the South African arboreous genera Tarchonanthus and Brachylcena, 

 Rhetinodendron and Robinsonia are apparently dioecious, but the former are referred to the 

 Inuloidese, and the latter to the Senecionideaj. In habit, Dubautia (Helianthoidese) of the 

 Sandwich Islands is quite like the Juan Fernandez genera just named ; while Dendroseris 

 is in a manner repeated by the subarboreous species of Sonchus in the Canary Islands. 



One peculiarity observed in dried specimens of some species of Robinsonia may be 



