ORIGIN OF THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS 19< 



that of the moist costal region of Ecuador than the mountainous 

 part. On the three islands just mentioned, there are lofty for- 

 ests covered with lianes and epiphytes, while the ground be- 

 neath is carpeted with ferns and mesophytic plants, conditions 

 which are about as far from alpine as could be well imagined. 

 The peculiar conditions on Charles Island seem to be due to 

 the loose nature of the soil and the smaller amount of precipi- 

 tation. The same species, Scalesia pedunculata, forms a very 

 large per cent of the forest trees on Charles, Indefatigable, and 

 James Islands; they are low and rather stunted on the first of 

 these, but lofty on the last two. The highest mountains on the 

 islands must have been 14,700 feet high, according to Baur, 13 

 before the supposed land connection between the islands and the 

 mainland was lost. Such mountains would evidently have sup- 

 ported, quite an extensive alpine flora, some little of which should 

 have persisted to the present time. I found but little evidence 

 of anything of the kind in my collecting around the summits 

 of the Galapagos mountains, the species which occur in such 

 localities being usually of a more or less mesophytic type. They 

 are in most instances, the same species which occur lower down, 

 in the moist regions of the islands, but when they grow on the 

 wind-swept areas around the summits, the3 r are usually greatly 

 reduced in size. There are no plants which have the rosette 

 habit, large and brilliantly colored flowers, excessive pubescence, 

 or other characters that one would expect to find in an alpine 

 flora. If one confines his observations to the dryer islands, 

 a desert flora will be found there but not an alpine flora. 



The conditions around these mountain tops are such that 

 alpine plants would probably have persisted if the}' had ever 

 been present there. The vegetation is very low in many places 

 so that it is hardly possible that alpine plants would have been 

 exterminated by shading. Furthermore, the temperature around 

 the summits of the mountains is far from tropical. I spent a 

 night at the top of the mountain northeast of Tagus Cove, 

 Albemarle Island, at an elevation of 4000 feet, and I passed the 

 most of the time huddled over a small camp-fire shivering. 



13 L. c, p. 309. 



