308 Transactions. — Botany. 



Fucacece and those of Australia. Indeed, the distribution of 

 the nine genera of this order found in New Zealand is suffi- 

 ciently remarkable to be summarised here. Five are con- 

 lined to New Zealand and Australia, two are endemic to New 

 Zealand. One is tropical in distribution ; and the last — 

 D'Urvillcea — is clearly antarctic, being confined to New 

 Zealand, the Falklands, Cape Horn, and Kerguelen's Land ; 

 but even this is represented in Australia by the closely-allied 

 and scarcely generically distinct Sarcophycus. Our two 

 endemic genera are also Australian in their relationships. 

 Landsburgia finds its closest ally in the genus Phyllospora, 

 which is represented in Australia, and Marginaria comes 

 nearest to Scytothalia of Western Australia and Tasmania. 

 This last genus, however, is probably to be regarded as 

 antarctic rather than Australasian, for there is a species 

 (S. obacura, Dickie) in Heard Island, and another (S. 

 jacquinotii, Mont.) in South Shetland. Harvey and Hooker 

 comment on the last-mentioned plant in a noteworthy 

 passage, part of which I shall quote, as it bears on the pre- 

 sent discussion : — 



" Scytothalia jacquinotii. Hub. Graham's Land, 63° S. ; 

 Deception Islands ; South Shetlands. 



"The existence of this seaweed on the icy shores of an 

 antarctic land, in the longitude of Cape Horn, is a most sin- 

 gular and anomalous fact, for I believe it to be the only species 

 of the tribe which inhabits the colder or antarctic seas of 

 South America."* 



Again, p. 457 : " No such obstacle [i.e., difference of tem- 

 perature] prevents the fullest interchange of Cystoseirece 

 between New Zealaild and the temperate seas of South 

 America. It however is the fact that, whilst this group 

 ' literally abounds in certain latitudes and longitudes, which 

 are those of New Holland and the west Pacific, they are 

 nearly absent from analogous positions in the longitude of 

 South America." 



I may add to this that the " Challenger ' : Expedi- 

 tion has shown they are also absent from the antarctic- 

 islands. 



To sum up, then, six of the New Zealand genera ot 

 Fucacece are found in Australia, and four of them are confined 

 to the two regions, whilst a fifth, Carpophyllum, is only repre- 

 sented elsewhere by a single species — i.e., C. scalare — at the 

 Cape. The remaining three are allied to Australian forms ; 

 but two of them are also antarctic in distribution. On turn- 

 ing to the New Zealand species belongiug to these genera 

 we find that, out of twenty-one, ten are confined to Australia 



* " Flora Antarctica," vol. ii., p. 4515. 



