476 APPENDIX. No. V. 
includes several species which also belong to Egypt, as Nymphzxa Lotus, 
Cyperus Papyrus and articulatus, Sphenoclea zeylanica, Glinus lotoides, 
Ethulia conyzoides, and Grangea maderaspatana. 
Of the many remarkable genera and orders characterising the vegetation of 
South Africa, no traces are to be found in the herbarium from Congo. 'This 
fact is the more worthy of notice, because even in Abyssinia a few remains, if 
I may so speak, of these characteristic tribes, have been met with; as the 
Protea abyssinica,* observed by Bruce, and Pelargoniwm abyssinicum and 
Geisorrhiza abyssinica + found by Mr. Salt. 
Between the plants collected by Professor Smith in the island of St. Jago 
and those of the Congo herbarium, there is very little affinity; great part of 
the orders and genera being different, and not more than three species, of 
which Cassia occidentalis is one, being common to both. To judge from this 
collection of St. Jago, it would seem that the vegetation ef the Cape Verd 
Islands is of a character intermediate between that of the adjoming continent 
and of the Canary Islands, of which the Flora has, of course, still less connection » 
with that of Congo. 
It might perhaps have been expected that the examination of the vicinity of 
the Congo would have thrown some light on the origin, if I may So express 
myself, of the Flora of St. Helena. This, however, has not proved to be the 
case; for neither has a single indigenous species, nor have any of the principal 
genera, characterising the vegetation of that Island, been found either on the 
banks of the Congo, or on any other part of this coast of Africa. 
There appears to be some affinity between the vegetation of the banks of 
the Congo and that of Madagascar and the Isles of France and Bourbon. 
This affinity, however, consists more in a certain degree of resemblance in 
several natural families and extensive or remarkable genera, than in identity 
of species, of which there seems to be very few in common. 
The Flora of Congo may be compared with those of equinoctial countries 
still more remote. , 
With that of India, it agrees not only in the proportions of many of its 
principal families, or in what may be termed the equinoctial relation, but also, 
to a certain degree, in the more extensive genera of which several of these 
* Gaguedi Bruce’s Travels 5, p. 52. 
+ Salt’s Travels in Abyssinia, append. p. (xiii. and Izv. 
