242 Dr. J. D. Hooker on the Vegetation 
of these orders will be recognised as forming a great part of the vegetation of 
every tropical country, except the Amaranthacee, which however find their 
maximum on the west coast of South America. Hence it is not to the preva- 
lence of any particular natural order, or the undue number of species contained 
in any one, that the Galapagos owe their extraordinary amount of novelty. All 
the general features of a tropical vegetation are retained, and even the genera to 
a great extent, but the change is in the species, of which one half are confined 
to that archipelago ; and this peculiarity in species not only relates to the 
difference existing between the Galapagos and the mainland of America, of 
which it is a botanical province, but to the separate islets of the archipelago, 
which, as Mr. Darwin aptly remarks, should be called “a group of satellites, 
physically similar, organically distinct, yet intimately related to each other, 
and all related in a marked though much less degree to the great American 
continent.” 
GiuMAcE&.—This somewhat artificial group, including Graminew, Cype- 
race and Junci, has been defined by Humboldt as including the majority of 
Monocotyledones in all latitudes. In the tropics of America these collectively 
form yr of the flowering plants, which is precisely the Galapageian proportion, 
and one that would not be expected if the fewness of the Monocotyledones pre- 
viously alluded to be borne in mind. Two conclusions may be drawn from this, 
that this paucity is owing to the scarcity of petaloid families, and that the fewness 
of Gramineæ, to which I shall next refer, is compensated by the Cyperacee. 
GnauINEA.— This order forms little more than go Of the Phaenogamic flora, 
the smallest proportion I have obtained from any country. This is the more 
remarkable, as nearly three-fourths are peculiar, proving that the order, though 
having many species which are well adapted for transport, has not sent its 
colonists to the Galapagos in the same proportion as it has to other countries ; 
as to the Sandwich Islands for instance, three-fourths of whose grasses are those 
of other countries. This paucity is further conspicuous from the islands within 
the tropies being richer in Graminec than the continents, where they do not 
form more than 45, whilst in the Sandwich Islands they amount to $, and in 
a adt D same longitude and equidistant from the equator on 
BND. f which is the Cape Verd proportion also ; a singular 
concurrence, considering that in all three localities the species are very dif- 
