244 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



the flora of Abingdon is exclusively Galapageian, and the common ele- 

 ment is greatest with Charles, Albemarle, and Chatham Islands. 



Albemarle Island. 



Albemarle is the largest island of the archipelago, and extends through 

 about one and a quarter degrees of latitude. It is L-shaped and crossed 

 by the equator near its northern extremity. There are many craters 

 upon it, some of them having been active within historic times. The 

 five largest range from 770 to 1570 m. in height. The island seems to 

 have been explored chiefly if not exclusively along its western shore, 

 the greater part of the plants collected upon it having been secured 

 about Iguaua Cove, Point Christopher, Elizabeth Bay, Tagus Cove, 

 Banks Cove, and Black Bight. The island was first visited for botanical 

 purposes by Macrae (whose name is also written McRae), a Scotch 

 gardener, sent by the London Horticultural Society, on the voyage of 

 the " Blonde," when in 1825 that vessel, under the command of the 

 seventh Lord Byron, conveyed back from England the king and queen 

 of the Sandwich Islands. Macrae remained eight days upon the 

 island, and collected there 41 different kinds of plants. Albemarle has 

 since been visited for botanical purposes by Darwin, Andersson, the 

 Hassler Expedition, Wolf, Lee, Baur, Snodgrass and Heller. The broad 

 southern portion of the island is relatively well watered and possesses 

 a rich and copious vegetation, while the northern parts are described by 

 Darwin as miserably sterile — an account to a great extent confirmed 

 even by those who have visited the island at a more favorable season. 

 In all 205 flowering plants and ferns have been found on Albemarle, 

 and of these, 17 are to our present knowledge confined to this island. 

 Thus the peculiar element (about 8 per cent) is less than that of any 

 of the other large islands. Among the noteworthy plants of Albemarle 

 are a well marked and apparently abundant Scalesia (S. gummifera) 

 confined to the island, and the problematic Pleuropetalum Darwinii, 

 which elsewhere occurs only upon James Island, although close con- 

 geners are found in Ecuador and Costa Rica. The different plant 

 families occurring on Albemarle are represented in about the proportion 

 in which they occur in the whole archipelago. Of the species of Albe- 

 marle nearly half are common to Charles and Chatham, and about one- 

 third to James, while scarcely more than one-fifth have been found on 

 Indefatigable, although it attains about the same height and lies directly 

 between Albemarle and Chatham. 



