4i8 GALAPAGOS ARCHIPELAGO chap. 



an account of the insects of this archipelago, and to whom I am 

 indebted for the above details, informs me that there are several 

 new genera ; and that of the genera not new, one or two are 

 American, and the rest of mundane distribution. With the 

 exception of a wood-feeding Apate, and of one or probably two 

 water-beetles from the American continent, all the species appear 

 to be new. 



The botany of this group is fully as interesting as the zoology. 

 Dr. J. Hooker will soon publish in the Linnean Transactions 

 a full acount of the Flora ; and I am much indebted to him for 

 the following details. Of flowering plants there arc, as far as 

 at present is known, 185 species, and 40 cryptogamic species, 

 making together 225 ; of this number I was fortunate enough 

 to bring home 193. Of the flowering plants, 100 are new 

 species, and are probably confined to this archipelago. Dr. 

 Hooker conceives that, of the plants not so confined, at least 10 

 species found near the cultivated ground at Charles Island have 

 been imported. It is, I think, surprising that more American 

 species have not been introduced naturally, considering that the 

 distance is only between 500 and 600 miles from the continent ; 

 and that (according so Collnett, p. 58) drift-wood, bamboos, 

 canes, and the nuts of a palm, are often washed on the south- 

 eastern shores. The proportion of 100 flowering plants out of 

 185 (or 175 excluding the imported weeds) being new, is 

 sufificient, I conceive, to make the Galapagos Archipelago a 

 distinct botanical province ; but this Flora is not nearly so 

 peculiar as that of St. Helena, nor, as I am informed by Dr. 

 Hooker, of Juan Fernandez. The peculiarity of the Galapageian 

 Flora is best shown in certain families ; — thus there are 2 i 

 species of Compositae, of which 20 are peculiar to this 

 archipelago ; these belong to twelve genera, and of these genera 

 no less than ten are confined to the archipelago ! Dr. Hooker 

 informs me that the Flora has an undoubted Western American 

 character ; nor can he detect in it any affinity with that of the 

 Pacific. If, therefore, we except the eighteen marine, the one 

 fresh-water, and one land-shell, which have apparently come 

 here as colonists from the central islands of the Pacific, and 

 likewise the one distinct Pacific species of the Galapageian group 

 of finches, we see that this archipelago, though standing in the 

 Pacific Ocean, is zoologically part of America. 



