266 C. SKOTTSBERG 



with this species and with solanifolia gave evidence of fundamental affinities between 

 the island endemic and species of the mainland to the north (I.e.). 



Mi})iulus is essentiall)' a western N. American genus with few species else- 

 where; the somewhat polymorphous M. glabratus ranges from N. America to 

 Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. 



The different opinions on the systematic \)os\t\on o{ Euphrasia forifios is siifi a 

 have already been referred to above. Within the area of the geographically isolated 

 Chilean-Magellanian 'Irifidac occurs the semicalcarate E. pcrpitsillaV\\\\. (S. Chile). 

 Both would indicate a road from the Australian-New Zealand area across the Ant- 

 arctic to America, just as the tropical mountains of Malaysia served as a road 

 between Asia and Australia, as Dl' RiETZ thinks (77. 536): "The Euphrasia popu- 

 lation of Juan r>rnandez may therefor very well have formed the northern end 

 of a population so far south that the lack of close relationships between E.for- 

 niosissiDia and the species of Middle Chile is fully explained, and the semical- 

 carate anthers of the more southern E. perpusilla may be the last South American 

 remnant of this old connection." Another question, not yet answered, is this: are 

 the very well-marked Trifidae, reaching from subantarctic America to the Andes 

 of S. Chile, likewise descendants from a remote southern population or did they 

 originate in Chile? 



Plantago fernaiuiezia is another arborescent member of a herbaceous world- 

 wide genus and often cited as an example of a mysterious connection between 

 Hawaii and Juan Fernandez, but if we look at the total distribution of sect. Palaeo- 

 psyliiuui (see above p. 209) its character of an austral group is revealed, even if 

 it extends north to X. America and S. Europe. In the south it is circumpolar, 

 and the route from New Zealand (Auckland Is.) via Rapa to Hawaii can be traced 

 — a radiation from Antarctica seems not unthinkable. 



Plantago truucaia, represented in Juan Fernandez by an endemic (.') variety, 

 belongs to the large section Xoiwrbis and needs no further comments. 



The neotropical Ilcdyotis ihesiifolia is a recent addition to the flora and may 

 have been accidentally introduced. 



Xcrtcra is an austral circumpolar genus allied to Coprosvia and best devel- 

 oped in Xcw Zealand where 5 species occur, 4 of them endemic; the fifth is 

 X. grauadfusis (depressa), claimed to be very widely spread. One species is en- 

 demic in Tristan da Cunha. Recent observations tend to show that granaderisis 

 includes taxonomically distinct forms; the Malaysian plant is not identical with 

 the iXndean, and other forms will perhaps become distinguished after a critical 

 revision. He this as it may, the genus is Antarcto-tertiary and, if we link Tristan 

 da Cunha with Africa, tiicentric. 



CoprosDia is a parallel to I lalurrJiagis but differs in being present in Hawaii; 

 another difference is that the species of Juan Fernandez do not have their closest 

 relatives in New Zealand or Australia — lloolccri forms its own section, pyrifolia 

 is of Polynesian affinity. As the genus is absent from America as well as from 

 Africa it should lie near at hand to refer it to a West Pacific element, a position 

 favoured by the relationships o{ pyrifolia, and to the believers in transoceanic 

 migration combined with evolution of local endemics wherever (T^/r^j-;;/^ happened 



