VEGETATION OF SANDY POINT. 255 



the north-west, the sky was soon covered, and some 

 rain fell ; again the sky cleared, and, if I remember 

 right, four or five similar changes occurred before 

 nightfall. 



At this season I could not expect to see much of 

 the vegetation of the country, but I found rather more 

 than I expected. Two Cojnpositce, both evergreen 

 shrubs, were abundantly clothed with fruit, and among 

 other characteristic forms I collected two species of 

 Accena, a genus widely spread through the southern 

 hemisphere, allied to, but very distinct from, our 

 common Alchemilla. From its ancestral home in 

 south polar lands, many descendants have reached 

 South America, and some of these have followed the 

 Andean chain, and thus got to Mexico and California. 

 From the same stock we find representatives in New 

 Zealand, Australia, Tristan d'Acunha, and South 

 Africa, while one has travelled so far as the Sandwich 

 Islands. The seeds are provided with hooked beaks, 

 which may have attached themselves to the plumage 

 of oceanic birds, and a single successful transport in 

 the course of many ages may have introduced the 

 parent of the existing species to new regions of the 

 earth. It was not without interest to find two cosmo- 

 politan weeds, our common shepherd's purse and 

 chickweed, both flowering in winter in this remote 

 part of the world. 



From the summit of the hill I enjoyed a good 

 view of the flat-topped range — apparently from 2500 

 to 3000 feet in height — that separates the Straits 

 of Magellan from Otway Water. This is a land- 

 locked basin nearly fifty miles long and half as wide. 



