president's address. 849 



5. Bog flora of high talkie land of Kauai, and of the broad top 

 of Mt. Ecka or West Maui. Here are representatives 

 from Antarctica (New Zealand, Falkland Islands, 

 Southern Andes, etc.). 



It is to be noted that there are 40 endemic or peculiar 

 g(mera, one of which is the curious Lobeliaceous tree Sclerotheca. 



It is most difficult to understand how winds, waves and 

 birds could have combined to bring the seeds of all these plants 

 together and pop them down just on the right spot where germi- 

 nation could take place. 



The Galapagos Islands are another example; but here the 

 distance from the mainland is much less, and the number of 

 species smaller, so that the possibility of accidental introduction 

 is largely increased, but it is curious that the different islands 

 possess different species, and those chiefly distinct from the 

 mainland. This remark applies to the land snails as well as the 

 plants.* The affinities of the endemic flora are entirely American. 

 A few plants such as Lipocliceta, laricifolia, have congeners in 

 the Sandwich Islands, and not in America, but the arboreous 

 Lobeliacese are absent. There are only five species noticed 

 common to all islands, two species in four islands, and six in 

 three, according to Mr. Botting Hemsley's account in the "Botany" 

 of the Challenger. If species have drifted from the mainland, or 

 been conveyed by birds or otherwise, why should the same species 

 not have been conveyed to all islands, or those on one island not 

 have been transferred to the others 1 



The floras of the larger islands of the south-western Pacific have 

 a decidedly Malayan character, and there is not the development 

 of endemic genera which would lead to the certain conclusion that 

 the islands were relics of a former more extensive land area. 



In the "Botany" of the Challenger Expedition, p. 68, there is 

 an interestins: and instructive remark on the Flora of the Eastern 



* See Mr. Da,irs paper la the Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 189lj, 

 p. 395. 



