164 OUR BRITISH PLANTS. 



and have been named " Germanic plants." Yet, in Java, the 

 Souther7nuood and Ribwort Plantain^ two of the commonest of 

 these plants, are found on one of the mountains at the height of 

 9,000 feet, and on the higher parts of the Himalayas and the 

 mountains of central India many other European genera are 

 found. It was the opinion of Dr. Darwin that these north 

 temperate plants migrated during the great Glacial epoch. There 

 is little doubt that the British representatives crossed what is now 

 the North Sea when this country was united to the continent. 



In the southern and south-western counties of England is 

 found a group of plants, found nowhere else in the country, and 

 which, having close relationship to the flora of the north-west of 

 France and the Channel Islands, has been styled the " French 

 type." Examples of this type are Ti-ifolium strictum and 

 Hypericum ruiariifolium^ both found in Cornwall and Jersey. 



In the mountainous region of the south-west of Ireland are a 

 few hardy species of plants quite distinct from the French or the 

 Germanic type, and, strangely, are identical with species found in 

 Spain and Portugal ; nowhere else in northern Europe are they 

 to be found. Six species of Saxifrage ; three species of heather, 

 the most remarkable of which is the beautiful St. Daboecs Heath ; 

 the Strawberry tree {Arbutus wiedo), the only representative, by 

 the way, of the Heath tribe to be found in Palestine ; the Spanish 

 Butter-wort ; and the Pyrenean Cress are among the most interest- 

 ing plants of this group. As none of these forms are to be 

 found in France it is improbable that they could have come to us 

 by that route, and no existing oceanic currents could have aided 

 the distribution. It must have been that Spain and Ireland were 

 once united, and if the migration were from the southern country 

 it must have been across what is now the Bay of Biscay. Or, was 

 the migration from some western land to both these countries 

 simultaneously? Geologic science aids in the solution of the 

 mystery. During the Miocene epoch a great continent appears to 

 have extended westward from Europe ; Madeira, the Azores, and 

 the Canaries, the highlands of this continent, are now the sole 

 relics. " The semicircular belt of gulf-weed, called the Sargassum 

 Sea, ranging between the 15th and 45th degrees of north latitude, 

 remaining constant in its position, is supposed to mark the ancient 



