FUEGIAN ELEMENT OF THE FLORA. 207 
majority. But the whole of these species are not of pure Australian 
origin, for they include cosmopolitan, Malayan (nearly all the ferns 
and their kin), and Fuegian elements. Also, with regard to a good 
many of the species it is just as reasonable to assign to them a New 
Zealand origin as an Australian one. 
The Fuegian element of the New Zealand flora, although con- 
siderably smaller than the Australian element, has given rise to far 
more speculation. This arises from the fact that though biological 
geographers have been willing to erect a “land bridge ’ between 
northern Australia, Malaya, and New Zealand, many have hesitated 
before in imagination turning into dry land the profound depths 
of ocean which lie between New Zealand and Antarctica or South 
America. At the same time, the presence of this Fuegian element 
so far distant from its present home has to be explained. 
Thanks to a recent publication of the eminent antarctic and sub- 
antarctic botanical explorer, Dr. Karl Skottsberg, of Upsala (Sweden), 
an admirable account is available of the relationship of the New 
Zealand and Fuegian floras, based on that reliable botanist’s exami- 
nation of both New Zealand and Fuegian material. Forty-seven 
families are common to the two regions, and 68 genera. Regarding 
these genera Skottsberg thus writes* :—- 
“We know . . . that, judging from the actual distribution of 
plants, there is an Australian and New-Zealandic element in Andine 
and Subantarctic America, that there is an Andine element in New 
Zealand and Australia, and that there remain genera, or even orders, 
which are virtually bicentric and form what one might perhaps call 
the Old Antarctic element. Here are examples of the three groups: 
(1) Dacrydium, Carices Echinochlaenae, Leptocarpus, Astelia, Lomatia, 
Embothrium, Orites, Drimys, Aristotelia, Drapetes, Tepualia, Epi- 
lobium conjungens, Pseudopanax, Myosotis, Veronica sect. Hebe, Phyl- 
lacne, Lagenophora, Cotula sect. Leptinella ; (2) Carices bracteosae et 
aciculares, Enargea, Phrygilanthus, Acaenae Acrobyssinoideae, Euan- 
cistrae et Laevigatae, Gerania chilensia, Discaria, Fuchsia, Azorella, 
Oreomyrrhis, Pernettya, Jovellana, Ourisia, Plantago sect. Planta- 
ginella ; (3) Oreobolus, Carpha, Uncinia, Gaimardia, Marsippo- 
spermum, Rostkovia, Libertia, Nothofagus, Laurelia, Muhlenbeckia, 
* Notes on the Relations between the Floras of Subantarctic America and 
New Zealand, “ The Plant World,” vol. 18, pp. 129-42, May, 1915. 
