iv TROPICAL FLORAS 63 



Jamaica and Trinidad are the only West Indian islands of 

 the larger group for which I have been able to get recent 

 figures. Mr. L. N. Brittan, of the New York Botanical 

 Gardens, who has collected in the former island, estimates 

 the species at 2722, which, for a sub-oceanic island, is a 

 large amount. Trinidad, which is almost a part of the 

 continent, should be much richer, and its existing collections, 

 not quite reaching 2000, are certainly much below its actual 

 number of species. The Galapagos, now probably fairly 

 well known, but possessing only 445 species, show us how 

 scanty may be the flora of a group of islands of considerable 

 size and situated on the equator, when the conditions are not 

 favourable for plant-immigration or for the growth of plants 

 at or near the sea-level, as has been pointed out in my 

 Island Life. 



The Flora of Lagoa Santa 



There is, however, one small area in the campos of 

 Brazil in about 20 S. lat. and 2700 feet above the sea-level, 

 which has been thoroughly explored botanically by a Danish 

 botanist, Professor Eug. Warming, who lived there for three 

 years with his fellow-countryman Dr. Lund, who first studied 

 the fossil vertebrates in the caves of the district. This was in 

 1863-66 ; and after studying his collections for twenty-five 

 years with the assistance of many other botanists, he published 

 in 1892 a quarto volume giving a most careful account of 

 the vegetation in all its aspects, with numerous very char- 

 acteristic illustrations, both of individual plants and of 

 scenery, forming one of the most interesting botanical works 

 I have met with. Unfortunately it is printed in Danish, 

 but a good abstract (about thirty pages) in French renders 

 it accessible to a much larger body of readers. 



This flora is strictly limited to an area of sixty-six 

 square miles, so that every part of it could be easily explored 

 on foot, and again and again visited as different species came 

 into flower or ripened their fruit. The surface is undulating 

 and in parts hilly, with a lake, a river, some low rocky 

 hills, marshes, and numerous deeply eroded ravines and 

 valleys, often with perpendicular rocky sides, where there 

 is perpetual moisture and a rich forest vegetation. But 



