402 



which he endeavours to account for the present distribution of species 

 in Britain, by supposing them to have been originally created at 

 widely distant epochs of time, and to have migrated into Britain from 

 different and distant centres of creation. The views of Mr. Forbes 

 may be conveniently divided into facts and conjectures. Firstly, as- 

 certained facts respecting the actual present distribution of plants in 

 Britain ; secondly, conjectures about the original causes of certain re- 

 markable peculiarities in their distribution. There is originality, 

 doubtless, in the conjectures, but so far as the botanical facts are 

 given with accuracy, they do not possess that novelty which has been 

 claimed for them on behalf of Mr. Forbes. The basis of this, the 

 only substantiated part of this paper, was in print ten years ago. 



Our immediate purpose, however, is not to enter upon any critical 

 examination of the views propounded by Mr. Forbes, but rather to 

 suggest to those who may feel interested in testing their soundness, 

 that the work whose title is translated above, is well calculated to be 

 of use in their examinations. The first islands south-west from Bri- 

 tain, and almost a central group in the Atlantic, should afford a Flora 

 well adapted for trying the soundness of Mr. Forbes's bold conjec- 

 tures, as to the geographical centres from which Britain has derived 

 its own Flora. And we may perhaps say with equal propriety, that 

 they should also afibrd a test of the supposed different epochs of cre- 

 ation, since their geographical position should connect them more 

 proximately with the (supposed) oldest Floras, while their apparently 

 recent formation, even now only in progress, ought to connect them 

 rather with the (supposed) newest Floras. In this view, the ' Flora 

 Azorica' seems particularly worthy the attention of British botanists. 



It is a remarkable circumstance that we should have reached near- 

 ly to the middle of the nineteenth century, in almost complete igno- 

 rance, botanically speaking, of a group of islands which lie so near to 

 Europe, with which a considerable trade is carried on from England, 

 and which are so frequently touched at by our homeward-bound ves- 

 sels. Some few of the more conspicuous plants were introduced into 

 Kew Gardens by Masson, and others were placed in the herbaria of 

 Banks and Smith from the same source, though with unpublished 

 manuscript names only. In the year 1838 the islands were partially 

 explored by the younger Hochstetter, with his fellow-traveller Guth- 

 nick, who visited six of the nine islands. Six years afterwards. Dr. 

 Seubert published the first and only ' Flora Azorica,' being a descrip- 

 tive list of the species collected by Hochstetter, with some few addi- 

 tions from other sources. Seubert enumerates nearly four hundred 



