Mr. R. B. Hinds on Geographic Botany. 21 



perate portion of New Holland ; and the southern extremity of 

 America possesses many circumstances to remind the botanist of 

 the North of Europe or America. 



Occasionally these characters are conveyed by the presence of 

 natural families, and their value increases inversely to the num- 

 ber of species they contain. A small family, composed but of a 

 few species, has less means of being represented in diiFerent loca- 

 lities than a more bulky one. The closest connexions are fur- 

 nished by genera, these being founded on a more minute view of 

 their organization, and on characters shared by a smaller number 

 of vegetable forms. A variety of remarkable instances are con- 

 tained in botanical works* exhibiting lists of plants in one tropic 

 or temperate region having kindred species in others, differing in 

 a slight degree only, yet possessing those distinctive marks with 

 a tenacity which makes it extremely difficult to arrive at any 

 other conclusion than that they are separate species. Some 

 of the natural families are very generally diffused; as the most 

 remarkable may be mentioned — Leguminosae, Malvaceae, Ranun- 

 culaceae, Caryophylleae, Crucifera, UmbellifercEf &c. The genera 

 of some of these are also extremely ubiquitous ; TrolUus has been 

 often cited as a remarkable instance, and as it is a genus of few 

 species, the case is more striking. No genus of equal extent 

 surpasses Senebiera in the wide diffusion of its species ; it com- 

 prises eight species, two of which are European, whilst the Cape 

 of Good Hope, St. Helena, Madagascar, Monte Video, Quito and 

 Egypt, has each its peculiar kind. 



5. Those islands which are so far removed from the nearest 

 mainland, that their vegetation may be considered to be inde- 

 pendent of it, have much that is peculiar in their flora. — Though 

 there is not the least objection to consider many of them as the 

 summits of submarine chains of mountains, it is not probable 

 that they should have been so many centres of vegetation. If 

 the latter were so numerous as to embrace even these, the theory 

 must be regarded the same as that which maintains an universal 

 creation. Some islands are but specks on the globe, and yet we 

 find them with numerous peculiar species. The vegetation of St. 

 Helena is almost altogether its own, having very few plants com- 

 mon with Africa or America. Among 239 plants collected at the 

 Sandwich islands, exactly 100 have not hitherto been found else- 

 where, not even in the other Polynesian islands. The Society 

 islands have also a number of their own. Notwithstanding the 

 immediate vicinity of the Canary islands to the coast of Africa, 

 there were found to be thirty peculiar of sixty-four collected. 

 It is only on islands situated as Malta, and originally extremely 



* Willdenow, Introduction to Botany ; Spvengel, Philosophy of Plants, 



