FLORISTIC REGIONS 121 



of palms (Rhopalostylis sapida Wendl. and Drude), 

 which, growing often under the shadow of the Kauri 

 (Agathis australis Salisb.) in North Island, also extends, 

 nearly 400 miles eastward, to the Chatham Islands. 

 The arborescent liliaceous Cordy lines, though mainly 

 Indo-Malayan, are represented in South America; but 

 Phormium tenax Forst., the New Zealand Flax, ranges 

 only to the Auckland and Chatham Islands, another 

 species of the genus occurring in Norfolk Island. The 

 absence of Cycads from New Zealand emphasises the 

 independence of the flora of direct connection with 

 Australia. Of even greater interest is the Fuegian 

 affinity of the flora, indicated by such species as Acana 

 adscendens Vahl and Oxalis magellanica Forst., and 

 by no less than 56 genera present in New Zealand out 

 of the total 84 of the Falkland Islands. But the great 

 development of Composite (221 species, or about one- 

 seventh of the entire flora), and such genera as Gunner a, 

 Fuchsia, Calceolaria, and Drimys, may rather be termed 

 Valdivian or Southern Andine than Fuegian charac- 

 teristics. This evidence would seem to accord well with 

 the theory of a Cretaceo-Eocene Antarctic bridge (the 

 " Archinotis " of Dr. von Jhering) from Chile to New 

 Zealand, New Caledonia, and Papua, while the Sub- 

 antarctic or East Fuegian lowland forms may have 

 spread eastward by a chain of islands at a later period. 



