NOTES ON BOTANY. 51 



rose, and these islets became isolated mountain tops, the Alpine 

 plants remained only on the high ground, while the Germanic Flora 

 spread itself over the lower plains and valleys, and dispossessed 

 the Arctic forms as the climate grew milder. 



Then still remained three limited assemblages of plants and 

 animals, all derived from continental regions south of the great 

 Germanic group. The Kentish and Devon Flora (with the latter of 

 which we in Dorset are most intimately associated), according to 

 Forbes, must have migrated (probably at two periods anterior to the 

 Germanic migration) from the north-west and west of France, 

 across a tract of land now destroyed. But, perhaps, the most 

 remarkable of all the Floras is that characteristic of the south-west 

 of Ireland. The peculiar plants of this region were found to be 

 identical with species either confined to, or abundant in, Spain and 

 Portugal. No marine currents could account for their transmission, 

 nor could they have been conveyed as seeds through the air. The 

 hypothesis which Forbes proposed was that at a period greatly 

 earlier (post-miocene) than that of the origin of any of the other 

 Floras there existed a tract of land between Ireland and the 

 Peninsula, across which the Spanish vegetation crept towards the 

 north-west. 



Now, we need not concern ourselves with the Germanic or 

 Scandinavian sections of our Flora. The theory which I have 

 mentioned seems to account very well for this part of the question. 

 Xor need we quarrel with the suggestion that the so-called Kentish 

 and Devon Floras came to us from France. But I do not at all 

 believe in any former land connexion between Ireland and the 

 Spanish Peninsula. The soundings are too deep to admit of any 

 such possibility. The special plants of Killarney and the west of 

 of Ireland must, as it seems to me, have reached us by the same 

 route as the special plants of Dorset, and Devon, and Cornwall 

 i.e., along the west coast of France. Why some of these are now 

 confined (within our area) to Ireland, and some to the south-west of 

 England; and why some are absent from western France is a 

 problem which I can only commend to the attention of students, 



