Antarctic Plants in Polynesia 299 



on Stewart Island), and W. trichosperma in West Patagonia, 

 where S Lat. 49° 30' marks the southern limit o£ the genus — but 

 it is eminendy tricentric. According to Engler (in Nat. Pflanzen- 

 fam., ed. 2, with a few additions o£ later date), there are about 

 90 species in America (some 84 in tropical South America, 6 in 

 Central America and the West Indies, and W. trichosperma) ; 15 

 in Madagascar (including the Comoro and Mascarene Islands) ; 

 26 along the western border o£ the Pacific (2 in New Zealand, 3 

 in New Caledonia, 2 in New Hebrides, 6 in New Guinea, 5 in 

 the Malay Archipelago, 8 in the Philippines) ; besides 1 1 Polyne- 

 sian (excluding New Caledonia and New Hebrides), namely, 

 5 Fiji, 2 Samoa, i Rarotonga, 2 Tahiti, i Rapa, and i Marquesas, 

 of which W.affinis is found in Fiji and Samoa. Two special fea- 

 tures interest us here: Weinmannia does not reach either the 

 Australian or the African continent, a fact of certain importance; 

 and the Pacific species form, with very few exceptions, a special 

 section not represented elsewhere. It would seem plausible to 

 suggest an Antarctic origin of the family Cunoniaceae ; the genera 

 are grouped around Antarctica, and leaves of Caldcltivia have 

 been reported from the Tertiary beds of Seymour Island (Dusen) . 

 The bicentric genera are absent from the African sector. It is 

 true that Uncinia and Lagenophora occur in Tristan da Cunha, 

 but the species are Magellanic and thus we cannot regard Tristan 

 as an independent station in this connection. The same applies to 

 Kerguelen with its Neo-Zelandic Uncinia. Both genera are typi- 

 cally Paleantarctic. Of the two subgenera of Uncinia, one is 

 monotypic and confined to Magellania. The other has 2 sections. 

 One of them (7 sp.) is entirely American, with 2 species in 

 southern Chile, i species ranging along the Andes with an out- 

 lying station in Masafuera, i in tropical America, i mainly sub- 

 antarctic species going east to Tristan da Cunha, St. Paul, and 



