DERIVATION OF THE FLORA AND FAUNA 337 



very little use on longer distances. I cannot help drawing the conclusion from 

 this that the sedentary habit was acquired after the great colonization had taken place. 

 Few phytogeographers have had greater faith in the capacity of wide-ranging 

 marine birds to carry diaspores than Grisebach. In his discussion of bipolar 

 species found in the far north and the far south but not at all in intermediate 

 zones he selected Geiitiajia prosirata Haenke as the best example. Its distribu- 

 tion is due, he says, to the wanderings of Diomedea exulans which, 



abweichend von der Lebensweise der meisten anderen Zugvogel, iiber beide Hemispharen, 

 von Kap Horn bis zu den Kurilen und Kamtschatka, wandert und die Standorte jener 

 Pflanze in der arktischen und antarktischen Flora in Verbindung setzt. Mil der Beute, 

 die dieser Vogel verschlingt, kann er auch Samen von Pflanzen, welche, mil den Fliissen 

 ins Meer gespult, in den Magen der Fische ubergehen, in einzelnen Fallen ausstreuen, 

 so dass sie an fernen Kiisten aus seinem Dunger aufkeimen [32^. 469). 



I have not come across any comments on this bold theory. It is difficult 

 to take it seriously, but to Grisebach the only gap in his argumentation was 

 that nobody had happened to witness such an event. If he is wrong, he asks, 

 why is there no trace of this Gentiana in the Andes, where it would thrive just 

 as well as in the Alps and in the mountains of Asia? To this should be re- 

 marked that G. prosirata is a polymorphous species of wide range and that it 

 does occur in the Andes from Colombia to Chile, suggesting that it has mi- 

 grated south along the mountains without the assistance of the albatross. 



Wallace (^/c^'. 259) tells us, on the authority of MoSELEY, naturalist to the 

 "Challenger" expedition, of the great albatross breeding on Marion Island in the 

 midst of dense, low herbage; I can add that this bird also breeds on South 

 Georgia and on some other southern islands, but as far as I know they do not 

 shift breeding places, and even if they did, they do not go on shore between 

 the breeding seasons. TAYLOR, in his important paper on Macquarie Island [26 j), 

 tells us about a giant petrel which was captured, tagged and released on this 

 island and shot on South Georgia, 8000 km away, four months later, but these 

 birds are often seen on land where they attack the penguin chickens; this was 

 at least the case on Paulet Island in the Antarctic. Whether they aid in the 

 dispersal of diaspores is unknown.^ Taylor quotes an observation, made on 

 Macquarie, that seeds were found adhering to the feet of an albatross. These 

 birds, when building their nests, regurgitate an oily fluid which makes seeds stick 

 to their feet. Macquarie Island was ice-covered during the Glacial epoch and the 

 plants, perhaps with the exception of some cryptogams, must have arrived since 

 the retreat of the ice. The vascular flora consists of 35 species, all except 4 

 occurring in the New Zealand subantarctic area — the 3 species with a claim 

 to be regarded as endemic should be reinvestigated — while those 4 species are 

 found in subantarctic South America, from where they are derived. All Mac- 



^ According to Taylor (p. 570) the two truly Antarctic phanerogams, Deschampsia ant- 

 arctica and Colobanthus crassifolius, are very rare in the Antarctic and reproduce only vegeta- 

 tively. I do not know where he obtained this information. They are scarce but have been 

 reported from many localities along the coast and adjacent islands of Palmer Land between 

 lat. 62 and 68 and, in favourable situations at least, both of them flower and produce ripe 

 seeds — see my paper in Botan. Tidsskrift vol. 51, 1954- 



22 - 557857 The Nat. Hist, of Juan Fernandez and Easter Isl. Vol. I 



