6 REPOET ON TWO BOTANICAL COLLECTIONS FROM 



The endemic genera of the Coast Andes are Enosmia and Caracasia. Euosmia, Humb. 

 & Bonpl., belongs to the Rubiaceae, and was found by Humboldt and Bonpland in the 

 mountains of Caripe ; it is a little obscure and needs re-examination. Caracasia, Szyszy. 

 ( Vargasia, Ernst) is a genus of the Marcgravieae, with two species found near Caracas ; 

 it is nearly related to the genus Ruyschia, found in the West Indies and from Guiana 

 to Peru. 



Following the list of endemic genera on p. 7 are three lists to be considered together. 

 All are of genera represented in the tierra fria of the Andes : the first contains seven 

 found on Eoraima, throughout the Andes to Chili, and in South Brazil ; the second 

 contains fourteen found on Eoraima and in the Northern Andes, but reaching neither 

 Chili nor the mountains of South Brazil; the third list contains thirteen found in the 

 Andes, which have passed aloDg the Coast Andes to Niaguata or the Silla of Caracas*, 

 but have not yet been found on Eoraima. 



These lists illustrate two points : — in the first place, they indicate how the Coast 

 Andes belong essentially to the Andes proper, — and the community of genera extends 

 to sjiecies in Cinchona, Accena, Cardamine, and Berberls ; in the second place, that 

 Eoraima and the mountains of South Brazil only have in common among woody plants 

 montane genera so widely Andine as to pass from Colombia to Chili. One is then led to 

 suspect that the mountains near Eio de Janeiro obtained their Andine shrubby genera 

 from the south-west, and that in their case the plains of Matto Grosso have been a very 

 similar barrier to immigration as the wooded hills on the west of the Casiquiare have 

 been to the Parime mountains. 



Six more genera are named in a last list ; they are common to Eoraima and to tin 1 

 mountains of South Brazil, without reaching Chili ; but they all descend to low levels in 

 the Province of Alto Amazonas, and obviously are not montane in a restricted sense. 



< )ther genera which cannot be regarded as truly montane, contribute montane forms 

 to the flora of Eoraima. The most notable of these is Abolboda, of which genus 

 A. Sceptrum is by far the largest species. 



Saxofrederida regalis is, like Abolboda Sceptrum, the largest of its genus. Lisianthm 

 Elizabethce and another species collected under this name by Appun are among the 

 largest-flowered of these gentians; and Utricularia Rvmboldtii so impressed Sir Eobert 

 Scbomburgk by its showy blossoms as to cause him to name the place where be first saw 

 it the El Dorado Swamp, after the treasure-city Raleigh and others sought in Guiana. 



im Thurn has suggested a resemblance between the floras of Eoraima and the 

 Brazilian mountains (Trans. Linn. Soc, ser. II. Bot. ii. (1887), p. 257), but the similarities 

 he notes are much more due to similarities of climate than to any evidently intimate 

 relationship between them in times past. 



A very rough estimate of the number of genera of Spermatophyta in the flora of 

 British Guiana places the total at 1070. The orders most strongly represented 

 are :— Leguminosae 86, Orchidaceae 66, Bubiaceae 54, Compositae 44, Gramineae 43, 

 Euphorbiaceae 31, and Melastomaceae 28. On Eoraima above 5000 feet, the order 



* Ernst in Journ. Bot, x. 1872, p. 261 ; in Bull. Soc. Bot. France, xxii. Rev. Bibl. p. 239 ; in ' Idea general de la 

 Flora de Venezuela ' in ' Estudios sobre la Flora v Fauna de Venezuela ' (Caracas, 1877), pp. 21 2-235 ; and elsewhere. 



