SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 153 



among these there is no relationship between the two coun- 

 tries to speak of. There are also, as I have already said, no 

 small number of genera and some species which, being com- 

 mon all round or partly round the northern temperate zone, 

 have no special significance because of their occurrence in 

 these two antipodal floras, although they have testimony to 

 bear upon the general question of geographical distribution. 

 The point to be remarked is, that many, or even most, of the 

 genera and species which are peculiar to North America as 

 compared with Europe, and largely peculiar to Atlantic North 

 America as compared with the Californiau region, are also 

 represented in Japan and Mandchuria, either by identical or 

 by closely similar forms. The same rule holds on a more 

 northward line, although not so strikingly. If we compare 

 the plants, say of New England and Pennsylvania (lat. 45°- 

 47°), with those of Oregon, and then with those of north- 

 eastern Asia, we shall find many of our own curiously re- 

 peated in the latter, while only a small number of them can be 

 traced along the route even so far as the western slope of the 

 Rocky Mountains. And these repetitions of east American 

 types in Japan and neighboring districts are in all degrees 

 of likeness. Sometimes the one is undistinguishable from 

 the other ; sometimes there is a difference of aspect, but 

 hardly of tangible character ; sometimes the two would be 

 termed marked varieties if they grew naturally in the same 

 forest or in the same region ; sometimes they are what the 

 botanist calls representative species, the one answering closely 

 to the other, but with some differences regarded as specific ; 

 sometimes the two are merely of the same genus, or not quite 

 that, but of a single or very few species in each country ; 

 when the point which interests us is, that this peculiar lim- 

 ited type should occur in two antipodal places, and nowhere 

 else. 



It would be tedious, and, except to botanists, abstruse, to 

 enumerate instances ; yet the whole strength of the case de- 

 pends upon the number of such instances. I propose there- 

 fore, if the Association does me the honor to print this dis- 

 course, to append in a note a list of the more remarkable 



