42 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



Islands, and is the seat of Government. Its nearest neighbour is 

 Barbuda, about twenty-seven miles to the north, while Montserrat 

 is about thirty miles to the south. Its area is 108 square miles, 

 being somewhat smaller than the Isle of Wight ; the coast Hne is 

 long, as there are many bays and harbours all round the island. 

 The sea around Antigua is very shallow, and is beset with coral 

 reefs, so that the harbours are of httle value for shipping. If the 

 land were elevated 100 fathoms the island would increase many 

 times over in area, and Barbuda w^ould then form part of it. 



It lies well wuthin the Hmits of the North-east Trade Wind 

 zone, which blows steadily upon the island for nearly every day in 

 the year with considerable strength. When this fails, either a 

 heavy and oppressive calmness prevails, or else very slight breezes 

 blow from the east or south, but these are so shght and so 

 infrequent that they may be neglected from the point of view of 

 seed dispersal. A glance at a map of the world will show the 

 impossibility of seeds being carried to Antigua by the Trade Wind, 

 as there is no land in the Trade Wind belt nearer than the Cape 

 Verde Islands, 2000 miles aw^ay ; and the gale does not even blow 

 directly from these islands to the West Indies. 



The island Hes in the path of the North Equatorial Current, 

 but this current is not felt very strongly. As this current flows 

 in the same general direction as the North Trade Wind, with 

 which, of course, it is intimately connected, and as, like the Trade 

 Wind, it arises in the landless bosom of the North Atlantic, it 

 is clear that it cannot affect the flora of the island by intro- 

 ducing plants whose seeds are water borne like the Coconut and 

 Manchineel. 



The only wind which could possibly be the means of intro- 

 ducing new species of plants is the destructive Hurricane, which 

 blow^s sometimes with the greatest violence and fury oyer Antigua 

 and the neighbouring islands, bringing total destruction in its wake. 

 Hurricanes, however, are fortunately rare, only two being recorded 

 for the last forty years in Antigua ; and the number of plants 

 introduced by their agency must be very few, if indeed any at all. 

 B. Climatic. — The chmate is tropical, but, like other small 

 tropical islands, does not show any great degree of heat. The 

 temperature does not show any great extremes, whether con- 

 sidered from the daily or annual aspect. The average annual 

 maximum is about 85 or 86° F. ; the average annual minimum is 

 about 72° F. On the hottest days the maximum is seldom above 

 90° F., while in the coolest nights the lowest readings are never 

 below 60° F. These figures are fairly correct for the whole of the 

 island, for, as the highest mountains are less than 1400 feet, there 

 are no stations w^here cool temperatures occur, as on the mountains 

 of Dominica (5000 feet) or Jamaica (6000-7000 feet) or most of 

 the other West Indian islands. 



The lowmess of the island is the cause of the relatively small 

 rainfall, w^hich has averaged about 45 inches per annum for the past 

 forty years. As a contrast to this, most stations in the fertile and 

 mountainous island of Dominica, 200 miles to the south, get an 



