NOTES ON THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE FLORAS 

 OF SUBANTARCTIC AMERICA AND NEW ZEALAND 



CARL SKOTTSBERG 



University of Upsala, Upsala, Sweden 



Ever since the father of antarctic botany, Sir Joseph Hooker, 

 published his admirable Introductory Essay to his Flora Novae 

 Zelandiae, the question of the relations between the various floras 

 around the south polar regions has been the incentive to numerous 

 investigations and speculations. Engler, in 1882, 1 summarized 

 our knowledge of these things in a most instructive and lucid 

 manner, and after him nearly every author who has written on 

 the floras or faunas of the lands or islands concerned has fully 

 understood the importance of dwelling upon the geographical 

 distribution of each species, and the old theories of land connec- 

 tions or transmarine migrations have repeatedly been discussed. 

 However, these authors seem to have used about the same lists 

 of species, without keeping up with the taxonomic work always 

 going on, and the last thirty years make numerous changes and 

 additions necessary. A number of monographs of various genera 

 and orders have appeared, several important discoveries have 

 been made, and many old mistakes have been corrected. Among 

 other publications used for this paper I might especially men- 

 tion the numerous monographs in Engler's Jahrbiicher, the 

 Pflanzenreich, also edited by Engler, Domin's monograph on 

 Koeleria, Bitter's monograph on Acaena (both in Bibliotheca 

 Botanica), the scientific results of the recent antarctic expedi- 

 tions, the new works on the flora of New Zealand, the Sub- 

 antarctic Islands, etc. 



Two circumstances have led me to take up again the problem 

 of plant distribution in austral lands; first, the fact that I came to 



1 Engler, A., Versuch einer Entwickelungsgeschichte der Pflanzenwelt, ii, 

 1882. 



129 



THE PLANT WORLD. VOL. 18, NO. 5, 1915 







