INSULAR FLORAS. 459 



that mangroves and coco-nut palms abounded ; and com- 

 paratively little was then known of the flora of Madagascar. 

 The Seychelles are included in Baker's Flora, and the 

 absolutely unparalleled concentration of endemic palms in 

 those islands was, and is, the most remarkable feature 

 brought to light in the vegetation of the islands of the 

 Indian Ocean ; but neither the subsequent investigation of 

 many of the smaller islands, nor the very extensive and 

 general exploration of Madagascar, has revealed the exist- 

 ence of one of these palms outside of the Seychelles group. 

 Two or three other plants previously only known to in- 

 habit the Seychelles, or Mauritius, as I shall presently 

 show, have been found in some of the smaller islands, but 

 not one of the palms. About half of the Madagascar palms 

 belong to the endemic genera Dypsis and Pkloga, and 

 almost all the other species are endemic. With the excep- 

 tion of the Cocoineae, all the six tribes of the Palmse 

 are represented in the islands of the Indian Ocean ; the 

 tribe in question being present only by the cultivated coco- 

 nut palm. 



A still more prevalent feature than palms in the 

 vegetation of Madagascar and the other African islands 

 of the Indian Ocean are the screw-pines. They abound 

 all over the smaller islands, but in Madagascar they are 

 more specially characteristic of the lower zone of vegetation. 

 The Pandaneae, or screw-pines, are nearly confined to 

 Polynesia, Malesia, the East African islands and East 

 Africa, and the genus Pandanus itself has its greatest con- 

 centration of species in the Mascarene Islands, using the 

 term in its widest sense ; every island, or group, such as 

 Mauritius, Bourbon, Rodriguez and Seychelles, having its 

 endemic species. Nearly a score of endemic species are 

 known to inhabit Madagascar, and, considering that they 

 are dicecious, and even more difficult to collect than palms, 

 probably this number by no means exhausts the total. It 

 may be added that the palms and screw -pines of the 

 Seychelles are well depicted in the North gallery at Kew. 

 Another point connected with the endemic element in 

 the Madagascar flora is the fact that much more than half 



