FalMands, etc.] FLORA ANTARCTICA. 217 



evident, though to enumerate them would be out of place here ; those between the latter island 

 and Tristan d'Acunha are indicated by the genera Phi/lica and Geranium, and also by some of 

 the Ferns and Lyeopodia : as, however, it is also through those genera that the botany of 

 Tristan d'Acunha resembles that of the Cape, it may fairly be doubted whether the apparent 

 affinity with St. Helena is not imaginary. It is a very remarkable circumstance that while 

 these three islands all possess some of the features of the African Flora, the predominant ones 

 are absent ; thus, whilst the St. Helena Flora is allied, and exclusively so, to that of the Cape 

 in Geranium, Melhania, and Pliylica, it has no representatives of entire Orders, namely Pro- 

 teacece, Putacece, Owalidece, Crassulacece, Ericece, Bestiacece, and many others, far more cha- 

 racteristic of the African vegetation than are any of the plants inhabiting St. Helena, 



The other islands whose plants will find a place in this division of the ' Antarctic Flora ' 

 are situated south of the Indian continent, widely apart from the American, and so far as geo- 

 graphical position is concerned, belong to Africa or India ; these are, Prince Edward's and 

 Marion Islands, the Crozets, Kerguelen's Land, and the Islands of Amsterdam and St. Paid. 



Of the two first-mentioned groups the vegetation is wholly unknown ; the former, Prince 

 Edward's and Marion, are small contiguous islets in the 47th degree of latitude and 38th 

 of east longitude ; they are of rather an undulating outline and evidently volcanic forma- 

 tion, from a little distance they appeared covered with grass. The Crozets are a group of 

 much larger islands, situated in the 48th degree of latitude and between the 47th and 49th 

 meridian, east of London : they are bold rocky masses, rising to a height of 6000 feet; some, 

 though of considerable size, are quite inaccessible, and others enveloped by eternal fogs, whence 



almost the whole of its native flowering plants and several of its genera being peculiar. Various causes have, within 

 the memory of man, reduced this flora to a mere shadow of what it once was, for when the island was discovered, it is 

 described as entirely clothed with forest. The greater part of this was said to be destroyed by the introduction of goats 

 and pigs, and by the bark of the trees being stripped for tanning, so that the flora is consequently now very limited 

 both in number of species and of individuals. During the interval that elapsed between two visits which I paid to St. 

 Helena, one very peculiar native plant, the Acahjpha rubra, had disappeared, and two other handsome shrubby 

 species of Melhania, with particularly showy flowers, had very recently become extinct ; whdst the existence of some 

 Walileubergia, of a Pliysalk, and a few of the peculiar arborescent Composites, though thus far prolonged, is held 

 upon a very precarious tenure. These plants are all well marked species, which on the destruction of the forests 

 seem unable to accommodate themselves to their altered circumstances, perish, and are replaced by introduced species, 

 exactly as is the case with various savage races of mankind, which do not suit themselves to the condition of the soil 

 when altered by the European settler, but diminish in number and dwindle away even when violent measures have 

 not been used for their extirpation. I may remark, that species in isolated islands are generally well defined; this 

 is in part the natural consequence of another law which I have observed, that genera in islands bear a large proportion 

 to the species, or in other words, that genera are small, seldom containing more than two or three species, and very 

 frequently solitary representatives. It must be borne in mind that this well-marked character of the species in insu- 

 lar localities applies equally to mountainous as to planer islands. It might seem natural to suppose that a varied 

 surface would have the effect of obliterating specific distinctiou, especially in small areas, as the Pacific Islands, the 

 Galapagos, St. Helena, and the like, wdiose present contour is not the residt of recent geological changes, and where 

 time, the required element for developing such species as are the offspring of variation, has been granted. 



