758 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



PLANT LIFE OF THE CAISTARY ISLAI^DS. 



By ALICE CARTER COOK. 



THE Canary Islands have appealed to tlie world under various 

 aspects. The ancients idealized them, medisevals fought over 

 them, and moderns are analyzing them. The fire-tried rocks, cre- 

 vasselike gorges, and confused mountain masses make a fascinating 

 field for geologists; curious Coleoptera attract the entomologists; 

 hills, valleys, and shores abound in interesting plants; the climate 

 and meteorological conditions have been the study of many doctors. 



One's first view of Grand Canary is most disappointing. The 

 "Fortunate Islands" of Lucian — abounding in luscious fruits, covered 

 with luxuriant forests, where the sun always shines, and Nature, 

 unaided, liberally supplies all needs — are a mental picture which 

 is sadly shattered by the reality. The low coast is buried in shifting 

 sand blown across from the African desert. Behind it are bleak hills 

 colored a dreary gray by drought-loving euphorbias. We wonder 

 where the materials for such glowing descriptions as Humboldt's, 

 Leclerq's, Edwardes's, and Berthelot's are hidden. 



Closer acquaintance banishes our doubts, and we soon learn to 

 love this land of crags, and find from hilltop, in valley, and on sea- 

 shore views unsurpassed by the oft-sung beauties of Switzerland or 

 Norway. 



The flora of the islands was studied thoroughly sixty years ago 

 by Webb and Berthelot, who with indefatigable zeal scoured peak 

 and plain. But they were unable to visit personally two of the 

 islands (Gomera and Hierro), and spent only a short time on Lan- 

 zarote and Fuerteventura. The results of their studies of the 

 phanerogams were published in three large volumes with fine plates 

 — now out of print and very difficult to obtain. Since that time 

 various botanists have spent longer or (usually) shorter intervals on 

 the islands, but no other extensive work has been undertaken, and 

 doubtless many plants, either undiscovered by these pioneers or in- 

 troduced since their time, or reported by them from only isolated 

 localities, remain to be studied; and the scattered results of the dif- 

 ferent investigators should be incorporated into a complete botany 

 of the archipelago. 



The flora of the archipelago includes, according to a recent pub- 

 lication, twelve hundred and twenty-six species of vascular plants; 

 four hundred and fourteen of these are found nowhere else in the 

 world, or only in Madeira, the Azores, or the Cape Verd Islands. 

 These three island groups together with the Canaries constitute the 

 so-called "Atlantic Islands"; all are of volcanic origin and have many 



