56 FLORA ANTARCTICA. [Auckland and 



12,689 feet, according to Dr. Royle (Must. Plant. Himmal. vol. i. pp. 22 and 278). In Ceylon a species has 

 been gathered at between 6000 and 8000 feet of elevation. One species, G.prostrata, H. B. K.,has a most extra- 

 ordinary range, both in longitude and latitude : in southern Europe it inhabits the Carinthian Alps, between 

 6000 and 9000 feet high ; in Asia it has been found on the Altai mountains about lat. N. 52°. Its American 

 range is much more remarkable, it having been gathered on the tops of the Rocky Mountains in lat. 52° N., 

 where they attain an elevation of 15,000-16,000 feet, and on the east side of the Andes of South America in 

 35° S. : it descends to the level of the sea at Cape Negro ; in the Straits of Magalhaens in lat 53° S. ; and at 

 Cape Good Hope in Behring's Straits, lat 683-° N. 



The fact of the occurrence, and the great number, of species of Gentiana inhabiting only the more elevated 

 regions of the temperate and tropical zones, and there reaching the snow limit, renders it very remarkable that 

 they should be so proportionally scarce in the higher latitudes both of the northern and southern hemispheres. 

 Generally speaking, the inhabitants of these elevated and cold regions are species of such Natural Orders and 

 genera as compose the mass of the Polar vegetation. It is so to a great extent with certain groups of Ranun- 

 culacete, of Graminete, Caryophyllea, Cruciferee, Ericeee, &c. &c, but not with Gentianem ; the proportion which 

 the species of the transition temperate zones bear to the other plants of those regions on the one hand, and to 

 the tropical species of the same genus on the other, is in both cases remarkably small. They are entirely 

 unknown to the Floras of the Polar American Islands ; very few inhabit Greenland, Iceland, or the Arctic sea- 

 shores in the North, or Tasmania, New Zealand, Fuegia, or the Antarctic Islands in the South; and again in 

 other parts of N. Europe and America, or of Chili and Patagonia, they are infinitely less numerous than in the 

 Alps of Middle and South Europe, or the Andes of the equator. 



Plate XXXVI. Fig. 1 , flower ; fig. 2, corolla ; fig. 3, stamens ; fig. 4, ovarium : — all magnified. 



XXI. BORAGINE.E, Juss. 



1. Myosotis capitata, Hook, fil.; radice perenni multicauli, caulibus validis ascendentibus 

 foliosis pilosis pilis patentibus, foliis lineari-oblongis v. subspathulatis obtusis supra sericeo-pilosis 

 rarius subhispidis subtus pilis laxioribus glabriusculisve, racemis capitatis densifloris simplicibus v. 

 conjugatis foliis supremis brevioribus, calyce cylindraceo, corollae tubo terete calycem | superante 

 limbi lobis planiusculis rotundatis. (Tab. XXXVII.) 



Hab. Lord Auckland's group ; on gravelly banks near the margins of the woods, close to high- 

 water mark. 



Radix crassa, elongata, 2-3-pollicaris, diametro pennse anatinae, horizontalis et descendens, per totam lon- 

 gitudinem fibras crassas, simplices vel fibrillosas emittens, fusco-nigra, ad apicem bi- tri-multiceps, reliquiis folio- 

 rum vetustorum subsquamosa. Caules simplices, ascendentes, rarius lateralibus prostratis, apicibus tantum 

 erectis, crassi, 4 unc. ad spithamsam longi, J- unc. lati, teretes, pilosi, pilis mollibus, patentibus, hie illic 

 densis, foliosi. Folia plurima, radicalia, seu caulibus abbreviatis fasciculata, patentia, lineari-oblonga, obtusa 

 rarius basi atteuuata et spathulata, 1^—2 unc. longa, 4-6 lin. lata, plana, medio uninervia, venis lateralibus reticu- 

 latis, obscuris, supra pilosa, pilis appressis, subsericeis, simplicibus, albidis, vetustiora scabriuscula pilis basi glo- 

 boso-incrassatis, subtus glabra vel parce pilosa, pilis laxis, mollibus, undique patentibus, basi glabra, lata, semi- 

 amplexicaulia, marginibus ciliatis, caulina minora, suberecta v. recurva, basi marginibus membranaceis, suprema 

 plerumque racemum superantia. Racemus terminalis, breviter pedunculatus, solitarius, simplex vel furcatus, 

 interdum conjugatus, in capitulum circinatum volutus, pluriflorus, ebracteatus. Flores conferti, erecti, 

 breviter pedicellati, pedicellis hirsutis sub lineam longis. Calyx elongatus. cylindraceus, 1^ lin. longus, hirtus, 

 lobis elongatis, lineari-oblongis, obtusis, obscure 3-nerviis. Corolla hypocrateriformis ; tubus elongatus, teres, 



