DERIVATION OF THE FLORA AND FAUNA 399 



the East Indies, etc. without reaching the coast of Chile. They are much more 

 numerous than JoilOW thought, 28 species: Cladium, Carex bertero7iiana, Pepero- 

 mia berteroana, margaritifera and Skottsbergii, Boehmeria, Santalum, Ranmuulns, 

 Fagara (2), Halorrhagis (3), Euphrasia, Coprosma (2), Waklenbergia (5), Robinso- 

 7iia (5), Syniphyochaeta and Rhctmodendron, the three last genera endemic. Objec- 

 tions may be raised against including Carex and Euphrasia; the section to which 

 Carex bertero7iiana was referred by KCkenthal is almost confined to New Zealand 

 and barely represented in Australia, Tasmania and Norfolk Island, but one little 

 known Chilean species is included, and Euphrasia formosissima is distantly related 

 to E. perpusilla of South Chile. The species of Wahlenbergia are puzzling, but 

 I have given my reasons for bringing them here as representing an African sector. 

 The most eloquent members are, perhaps, Santalum, Ranunculus, Halorrhagis and 

 Coprosma. 



This element is conspicuous also among the ferns: the extremely old Thyr- 

 sopteris, ArtJiroptcris, entirely unfamiliar with the neotropical flora, Dickso7tia, 

 Blechnum ScJiottii and Pteris berteroana. 



I never looked in earnest for a direct road across the south Pacific from 

 Australasia to Juan Fernandez, a route which ought to have had South America 

 as its terminus. I preferred to think that the group in question reached the islands 

 over the Scotia bridge and South America where, however, it had become extinct. 

 To prove this we must turn to palaeontological evidence. The Eocene beds on 

 the mainland contain leaves of many different plants, and it is not impossible 

 that a revision of the material will contribute to a solution of the problem. In 

 the lists published by Berry two items call for attention, Cyatheoides tJiyrsopt- 

 eroides in the Arauco flora, and Coprosma from Pichileufu, but the material is 

 sterile. It is true that, to judge from Berry's illustrations, Cyatheoides suggests 

 Thyrsopteris, but the author later [28. 57) compared it with h\s Dickso7iia patago- 

 nica, which was found with sori and undoubtedly belongs to the Cyatheaceae. 

 Thyrsopteris-like fossils have been reported from various places in the north 

 hemisphere. He described 2 species of Coprosma, based on leaf impressions 

 which, as far as I can see, tell us little about their systematic position. To 

 C. spathulifolia he remarks: 



These tiny leaves have occasioned a good deal of trouble, as the South American 

 representatives of the genus are not similar to the fossil. . . . The Chilean species are 

 not closely similar. . . . 



and to C. incerta, a most appropriate name: 



. . . they are so much like the endemic species of Coprosma of the Juan Fernandez 

 Islands and several forms from the Hawaiian Islands that I feel constrained so to 

 identify them, at least tentatively. . . . 



I cannot find that they agree better with Coprosma than with many other 

 genera. When Berry gives the distribution of the genus as "from the Malayan 

 archipelago through the Pacific islands to Chile" he includes Juan Fernandez under 

 Chile where, politically, the islands belong, for there are no species on the mainland. 



