Laing. — On the Alga of New Zealand. 315 



Wallace, and more fully set forth by Wallace in the book 

 under consideration [i.e., ' Island Life '] . There is, however, 

 one important exception. All Wallace's speculations on 

 former land-connections are based upon the present relative 

 depths of the intervening seas, and, while admitting, or rather 

 suggesting, a former land-connection between New Zealand 

 and eastern Australia, he utterly rejects Captain Hutton's 

 theory of a southern continent uniting the former with South 

 America, and perhaps also with South Africa. Without 

 going as far as Hutton, we think the botanical evidence, as 

 explained further on, strongly favours a former greater land- 

 connection in a lower latitude in the south temperate zone 

 than Wallace admits, and we cling to ' this forlorn hope of the 

 botanical geographer,' as Sir Joseph Hooker terms it, for all 

 the various means by which plants are diffused seem to be 

 inadequate to account for the present distribution of plants in 

 the coldest southern zone of vegetation." 



Again, Mr. Botting Hemsley, commenting on the land- 

 plants of Kerguelen,* says, — 



" Numerically, then, there is a preponderance of Fuegian 

 forms represented in Kerguelen and the other islands under 

 consideration as to what may be termed New Zealand forms. 

 The antarctic flora may have spread from America ; but with 

 all the facts before us there does not seem to be a special 

 affinity between the floras of Kerguelen, &c, and Fuegia, as 

 distinguished from the flora of the zone generally. Taking 

 the New Zealand flora as a whole and the Fuegian flora as a 

 whole, the former is as strongly represented in these islands by 

 the same and allied species as the latter, indicating a former 

 flora of the same elements spread all round a southern zone, 

 which included a part of New Zealand and the extreme south 

 of America, as well as the present isolated spots of dry land 

 in the same latitude." 



The statements here are based on the evidence derived 

 from only twenty-seven flowering plants and ferns. On 

 turning to our Algae we find that the statements made above 

 are on the whole confirmed by them. There are twenty-two 

 species occurring in New Zealand and the antarctic islands, 

 and twenty-five in New Zealand and South America and the 

 neighbouring islands. Six are confined to New Zealand and 

 South America, five are confined to New Zealand and the 

 antarctic islands. Now, seventy-one species of marine AlgaB 

 are known from Kerguelen, and about 110 (neglecting Proto- 

 •phycece) from South America. Thus the two elements are 

 represented here in about equal proportions, although the ant- 

 arctic-island forms perhaps preponderate a little. It is, how- 



* " Botany of the ' Challenger,' " vol. i., p. 253. 



