NEW COLONIAL FLOIIAS. 40 



rativelj speaking, small, while Cuba aftords a daily increasing num- 

 ber of unpublislied species. Considering, at tlie same time, bow 

 neglected by botanists Cuba bas been, if we compare it with tbe 

 standard works of men like Jacquin and Swartz, tbe publications of 

 whom, with regard to the "West Indies, were almost confined to the 

 British possessions, it will appear probable, that by far the greatest 

 part of the plants of our territory consists of old species ; these 

 indeed being the foundation of our scientific knowledge of the Flora 

 of tropical America. 



" To study these primary species and their varieties (which have 

 so often been misunderstood that their synonyms are far more 

 numerous than their numbers) to show that many of them range 

 through the whole of tropical America, and some even beyond its 

 limits, and that a considerable number of so-called geographical 

 species must be reduced, is an object of great systematic importance, 

 and this has been the aim which, during my labour, I have con- 

 stantly had in view." 



The first remark we must make on the AYest Indian Elora is the 

 apparent absence of temperate American species or types on the 

 loftier mountains. These, as stated above, rise in Jamaica to 8000 

 feet, and yet, with the exception of a few naturalized plants, as 

 Fragaria vesca, Ranunculus repens, &c., we find scarcely any European 

 or North American temperate genera or species, and very few Andean 

 either. Indeed, of nearly 1100 West Indian genera, less than 100 

 (exclusive of aquatic genera) are decidedly northern, and of this 

 number the majority are tropical genera represented in Europe. The 

 more decidedly temperate genera represented in the West Indies 

 amount to only thirty. Of these, the most remarkable are CahiJe 

 (C.cequalis, a species closely allied to our C. maritima, and which 

 has indeed been reduced to it by A. Eichard and others) ; Drosera 

 (D. longifolia (3., an American form of the European plant which ranges 

 from Canada to South Brazil, but which, in the West Indies, has 

 hitherto been found only in Trinidad) ; various American species 

 belonging to Salicc^ Facciniumy Primus, Ruhus, Galium, Lactuca, 

 Sonchus, Pinguicula, Plantago, and other genera which are found in 

 the Cordilleras ; and lastly, a species of Allium, which ranges from 

 the United States to Chili. The actually European and North 

 American species, exclusive of water plants and sub-tropical grasses, 

 believed to be indigenous in the Islands, are. 



N.H.R.— 1865. E 



