319 



According to Walker the old ^y^iters of the 16th century 

 described this tree, under the name of '^ TeixoV as abundant on 

 Pico. In the Macaronesian archipelagos Taxiis haccata has been 

 only recorded from the Azores, and j^robably its seeds were 

 originally brought by birds from South-western Europe, 



A very singular African connection is displayed in the existence 

 in the Azorean woods of Myrsine africana^ one of the most predomi- 

 nant of the shrubs. It is a native and often a mountain plant of 

 Inter-tropical and South Africa, Abyssinia, Arabia, and Central 

 Asia, It is not even at home in Madeira and the Canary Islands, 

 its nearest habitats being in Angola and Abyssinia. Its small 

 berries are well suited for dispersal by f rugivorous birds ; but its 

 isolated occurrence in the Azores is one of the puzzles of the flora. 



It thus appears from the preceding remarks that, whilst the 

 native plants of the upland moors of the Azores are European, 

 and as a rule not found in either Madeira or the Canary Islands, 

 those of the woods, whilst mainly non-European, are largely 

 Canarian and Madeiran. But these shrubs and trees of the woods 

 are Canarian In a special sense, since, with the exception of the 

 Juniper, they are confined to the middle zone or Laurel belt of 

 Teneriffe, which lies between the levels of 2000 and 5000 ft. The 

 parallel between Pico and Teneriffe would be more complete in this 

 respect if the soil-conditions of the upper part of the Azorean 

 mountain had permitted the development of an extension of the 

 Juniper belt far up its slopes above the present level of the woods, 

 just as Juniper oxycedrus once thrived on TenerifFe above the 

 Laurel belt. But on Pico the differentiation of the Juniper from 

 the wood zone has been, for the reason just given, incomplete. 



But the cone of Pico lacks much that is characteristic of the 

 Peak of Teneriffe. It lacks the Pine belt on its upper slopes 

 because the soil-conditions above the rain or cloud zone are un- 

 favourable for the growth of coniferous forests. It lacks the 

 lower or African zone and all its strange-looking plants, such as 

 the Cactoid Euphorbias, the Dragon Trees [Dracaena dTaco)^ and 

 Plocama petidula, as well as the large Sempervivums of the coastal 

 precipices, the result mainly of climatic differences associated with 

 a latitude some ten degrees farther north. 



But to return to the similarities between the Laurel belt of 

 Teneriffe and the woods of the Azores, there is a wider outlook of 

 the question, such as Hooter presented in his ** Lecture on Insular 

 Eloras '' (1866) and in his discussion of the Canarian flora in his 

 later book on Marocco (1878). He regarded the trees and shrubs 

 of the peculiar American genera existing in the Canaries and in 

 Madeira as the wreck of an ancient flora tliat existed in Europe in 

 Miocene times and has since been driven out of that continent by 

 the northern and eastern floras that now replace it there. 



But presumably the Canary Islands and Madeira hold the 

 wrecks of many floras. They possess a number of peculiar genera 

 and representatives of genera now exclusively American as well as 

 an abundance of peculiar species, all pointing to an age preceding 

 tliat indicated by the non-European trees and shrubs that are 

 common to all the three Macaronesian groups. It is probable that 

 both the Canaries and Madeira are far older than the islands of tlie 



