XV.] THE TWO EAST -COAST FLORAS. 275 



occurrence of arctic and subarctic plants upon Lake 

 Superior, Mt, Marcy, Mt. Washington and Mt. Katah- 

 din. But what is more to our present purpose, we 

 can now understand the similarities of the eastern 

 American and eastern Asian floras, because like plants 

 have persisted in similar climates when they were 

 pushed down from the north upon all sides of the 

 globe. The curiously dismembered diffusion of the 

 Phynna Leptostachya is intelligible ; and we can ex- 

 plain Schouw's perplexity concerning the less extended 

 and undetached distribution of the mammals and 

 higher plants, for these may, in many cases, have 

 developed or originated since the epoch of these great 

 dispersions. 



The climates of eastern America and eastern Asia 

 are still similar, as shown by the similar floras of the 

 present time. The facies of the Japanese, northern 

 Chinese and Himalayan floras are strikingly those of 

 our own Alleghany flora. The magnolias are peculiar 

 to these two great regions. The tulip -tree, confined 

 to our eastern states, has recently been discovered in 

 China. The story of shortia and schizocodon — inde- 

 pendent names for the same type of plant discovered 

 in the two continents — is familiar to botanists. Lately, 

 horticulturists have seen a striking instance of this 

 relationship in the remarkably rapid diffusion in this 

 country of the Japanese plums, fruits which are more 

 closely allied to our native species than the common 

 or European plums are, and which are also unques- 

 tionably adapted to a much wider range of our con- 

 ditions than the European plums are. We all know 

 that the horticulture most resembling that of Europe 

 is upon our Pacific slope, — there the European wine 



