Volume JO Number 5 



The Plant World 



B /llbaga3(ne of ©eneral :B3otan^ 

 MAY, 1907 



THE PATAGOIS^JA^T FLOKA. 



By Professor G. IMacloskie. 



It is iiupi'oper and misleading to speak of Patagoiiiaii 

 plants as Antarctic, for the region lies well within the temperate 

 zone, and its plants are nnt at all waifs and stravs, sncli as make 

 up the "Arctic" flora. Peranstral America is a better name, 

 snggestive of the two-f(dd connection nn one side, with the rest 

 of America, and on the other side with Australia. This two- 

 fold nexus appears to us to l)e the key to the distribution, some 

 of the plants coming down along the American rocky axis, and 

 ultimately from Asia and from the highlands of the Old World, 

 whilst there is a cross connection bv water with Australia, Tas- 

 mania and Xew Zealand. 



As Charles Darwiii remarked, there is not much coming 

 and going, of a botanical kind, between Patagonia and the Ar- 

 gentine and Brazilian regions. Very few plants are aide to 

 travel directly southwards from Argentina, and the region east- 

 wards of the Andes in Patagonia is chiefly rocky or shingle, a 

 sort of Patagonia peiraea ; all the rivers cross from the moun- 

 tains to the sea, carrying plants from the mountains to their 

 valleys, and finally to the sea, and also intercepting as c(donists 

 such as were being carried transversely. Hence the absence of 

 trees from the eastern part, except such fruit trees as have been 

 introduced. Thus we have a great circular inteniacial route, 

 along the mountain chains of the old and new worlds; such a 

 genus as Braija passing from the European Alps by the Hima- 



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