ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 353 



Sir James Ross from the frozen antarctic regions, is now exploring 

 the Thibetian portion of the Himalaya, the geography of plants is 

 indebted not only for a great mass of important materials, but also 

 for excellent general deductions. He calls attention to the circum- 

 stance that phgenogamous flowering plants (grasses) approach 17 J 

 nearer to the Northern than to the Southern Pole. In the Falkland 

 Islands, near the thick masses of Tussack grass (Dactylis caespitosa, 

 Forster, according to Kunth a Festuca), and in Tierra del Fuego or 

 Fuegia, under the shade of the birch-leaved Fagus antarctica, there 

 grows the same Trisetum subspicatum which extends over the whole 

 range of the Peruvian Cordilleras, and over the Rocky Mountains 

 to Melville Island, Greenland, and Iceland, and which is also found 

 in the Swiss and Tyrolese Alps, in the Altai mountains, in Kamt- 

 schatka, and in Campbell Island, south of New Zealand; therefore, 

 from 54 south to 74 north latitude, or through 128 of lati- 

 tude. " Few grasses," says Joseph Hooker, in his Flora Antarctica, 

 p. 97, "have so wide a range as Trisetum subspicatum (Beauv.), 

 nor am I acquainted with any other Arctic species which is equally 

 an inhabitant of the opposite polar regions." The South Shetland 

 Islands, which are divided by Bransfield Strait from D'Urville's 

 Terre de Louis Philippe and the Volcano of Haddington Peak, 

 situated in 64 12' south latitude, and 7046 English feet high, have 

 been very recently visited by a Botanist from the United States of 

 North America, Dr. Eights. He found there (probably in 62 or 

 62 , S. latitude) a small grass, Aira antarctica (Hooker, Icon. 

 Plant, vol. ii. tab. 150), which is "the most antarctic flowering plant 

 hitherto discovered." 



In Deception Island, of the same group, S. lat. 62 50', lichens 

 only are found, and not a single species of grass ; and so also, farther 

 to the south-east, in Cockburn Island (lat. 64 12'), near Palmer's 

 Land, there were only found Lecanoras, Lecideas, and five Mosses, 

 among which was our German Bryum argenteum : " this seems to 

 be the ultima Thule of antarctic vegetation." Farther to the south, 

 &mc?-cryptogamic, as well as phsenogamic, vegetation is entirely 

 wanting. In the great bay formed by Victoria Land, on a small 

 island which lies opposite to Mount Herschel (S. lat. 71 49'), and 

 in Franklin Island, 92 geographical miles North of the great volcano 



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