102 THE PLANT WOELD 



remarkably small. The most complete account of the flora of Bermuda 

 is that contributed bv W. Botting Hemsley to the Report of the Chal- 

 lenger expedition. Of the 326 species of flowering plants and ferns 

 recognized in this work, only 8 are considered to be endemic. Of these 

 326 species, 144 are regarded as indigenous. It is somewhat interest- 

 ing to note that the 144 indigenous species represent 109 genera and 50 

 families, an average of about 1| species to a genus, and a little less than 

 3 species to a family'. Of the 144 indigenous species, 109 occur also in 

 the southeastern United States, including southern Florida, and 108 

 are found also in the West Indies. It will thus be apparent that the 

 Bermudian flora is essentially West Indian in character. Among the 

 very few probably indigenous species which grow also in Vermont may 

 be mentioned Osmunda regcdis, Osmanda cinnamomea, Woodwardia Vir- 

 ginica, Asplenium Tricliomanes, Dryopteris Thelypteris, Typha angusti- 

 folia, Juncus tenuis, Juncus marginatus, Celtis occidentalis, Parietaria 

 Pennsylvanica, Ceratopliyllum demersum, Rhus radica)is, and Phryma 

 leptostacliya. Pferidium aquilinum is represented by the closely related 

 Pteridium caudafum, which by some is considered but a variety of the 

 former. 



The number of the higher plants growing upon the islands at the 

 time of discovery by the Europeans was, as we have seen, evidently 

 small as regards genera and species, but so many kinds from Europe, 

 the West Indies, Mexico, and the United States have become natural- 

 ized or are grown under cultivation, that the higher vegetation is no 

 longer open to the charge of poverty. The only really native plants 

 that attain to the dignity of trees are the Bermudian cedar (Juniperus 

 Bermudiana), a palmetto which was long considered the same as the 

 common species of the southern United States but is now separated 

 from it, and, by courtesy, perhai:>s, the weird mangrove, which, stand- 

 ing on stilts in the salt water, makes extensive thickets along the 

 marshy borders of sheltered bays in various parts of the islands. The 

 cedar, it would seem, is not confined to the Bermudas, as possibly 

 might be inferred f i om its name, but is said to be found also in some of 

 the West Indian islands. Mr. Hemsley, who Avrote the botanical part 

 of the Challenger Expedition Report, entertains the possibility that the 

 I)almetto also extends into the West Indies. The cedar attains consid- 

 erable size, and has been used to quite an extent in boat-building and 

 in the interior finishings of the houses, which are chieflj^ built of the 

 white limestone rock, or sandstone, as they call the softer forms of it. 

 The cedars of to-day are mostly from 20 to 40 feet high, and from 1 to 

 2 feet in diameter, but there are remains of trunks still standing which 

 are nearly five feet in diameter. Besides the cedar, the palmetto, and 

 the mangrove, there are three or four large native shrubs which might 



