258 Dr. J. D. Hooker on the Vegetation 



From the above it appears, that of the species presumed to be introduced 

 into the Galapagos through various agencies, about 40, or nearly so, have 

 exalbuminous seeds ; and of the 50 albuminous-seeded ones, the majority have 

 that substance dense or carnose ; some farinaceous, but only two or three oily. 

 These results agree to a considerable extent with what the gardener practically 

 deduces, from the success or failure which attends the planting of seeds from 

 foreign climes. The Leguminosce and Solanece, the very two orders the Gala- 

 pagos' proportion of which shows so undue an amount of continental American 

 species, are in miscellaneous collections of seeds, those which best retain their 

 vitality during long voyages. 



III. The last feature in the Galapageian Flora to which I alluded is, that 

 the several islets are tenanted for the most part by different plants ; this dif- 

 ference between the Florulae is as decided as that which exists between the 

 botany of the whole coast and that of America, or even more so in proportion, 

 if it be remembered how very siniilar the islets are in climate and geological 

 structure, and how close to one another in geographical position. 



Were this peculiarity effected only by those species which may have come 

 from the continent, it would have admitted of some explanation, so capricious 

 are the elements which regulate the interchange of species, and so uncertain 

 in their effects even when apparently most uniform in their action. But in this 

 case, the difference is most marked in the distribution of the species that are 

 Galapageian only, the individuals of which are not common to every part of the 

 archipelago, but for the greater part confined each to one solitary islet ; only 

 13 of the 128 peculiar flowering plants and ferns having been found hitherto 

 on two of the four whose Flora we know% two upon three of the islets, and but 

 one upon all four. On the other hand, the amount of difference, though great 

 numerically, is as regards its nature restricted within very narrow limits, 

 the plants of one island being represented in others by similar though not 

 identical species, producing a similarity in all general features combined with 

 a difference in details. 



Such well-marked and at the same time very narrow limits to the disper- 

 sion of nearly 130 species, is probably nowhere to be met with but amongst 

 the Galapagos, and, wonderful though it must appear, it is still very much the 

 accident of their birth-place ; it is in a great measure due to the want of means 



