1853.] Linnean Society. 227 



in its character than that of the Cape. The Argentine region is 

 recognised at once by its Flora as a province of South America ; 

 while the botany of the Cape has little resemblance to that of the 

 rest of Africa. The number of endemic genera in the Argentine 

 region is comparatively very inconsiderable, at the Cape remarkably 

 large ; the peculiar genera of the former almost always consist of a 

 single, or of very few species, while several of the pecuHar Cape 

 genera are very rich in species ; and the number of species common 

 to the shores of the Plata and the tropical parts of the same conti- 

 nent is considerable, while very few indeed are common to the Cape 

 and tropical Africa. Local circumstances may account for some of 

 these differences. The Cape, as a botanical region, is almost cut off 

 from the rest of Africa by the great deserts to the north of the 

 Orange River ; but no barrier of this sort exists on the eastern side 

 of South America, where (excepting perhaps the case of Patagonia) 

 the limits of the range of plants seem to be fixed by climate alone. 

 Naturalized European plants too have not spread far beyond the 

 neighbourhood of Cape Town, nor do they appear in any remarkable 

 quantity, or at all vie with (much less supersede) the original natives 

 of the soil. This difference does not at all depend on the extent of 

 cultivation in the two regions ; the climate, from its greater moisture 

 on the banks of the Plata, may be more favourable to such plants 

 than that of the Cape, but the chief cause of the difference is pro- 

 bably to be found in the soil. 



Mr. Brown has indicated a few points of resemblance between 

 the botany of Australia and that of the temperate parts of South 

 America, but all of these belong to Chile ; and Mr. Bunbury is not 

 aware of any plant on the eastern side of the continent, within the 

 latitudes in question, that can at all remind us of the Australian 

 Flora. Proteacece, which are sparingly scattered in Fuegia, Chile, 

 Peru, Guiana and tropical Brasil, appear to be entirely absent. 



The author then proceeds to remark upon some of the families 

 contained in Mr. Fox's collections, and on the range of particular 

 species. Under the head of 



Filices he contrasts the abundance of species found at Porto 

 Alegre and the neighbourhood (fifty-four in number, and nearly all 

 natives of tropical Brasil) with the poverty of Buenos Ayres, only 

 one feiTi from the south side of the Plata (a Blechmim ?, which seems 

 to agree with the description of Bl. auriculatum, Cav.) being con- 

 tained in the collections. This poverty Mr. Bunbury attributes to 

 the absence of shade and the want of variety of surface, in accordance 

 with which he notices the absence of Ferns, as observed by Martens 



