302 THE HISTORY OF 



certain plants appear to follow in the footsteps of Man, and 

 preserve the traces of his presence; frequently have they 

 helped me to discover the situation of a ruined hut, in the 

 midst of the wastes which extend out beyond Paracuta. 

 Nowhere have the European plants multiplied in such 

 abundance as in the plains between Theresia and Monte 

 Video, and from this city to the Rio Negro. Already have 

 the Violet, the Borage, some Geraniums, the Fennel, and 

 others, settled in the vicinity of Sta. Theresia. Everywhere 

 are found our Mallows and Camomiles ; our Milk-thistle, 

 but above all, our Artichokes, which, introduced into the 

 plains of the Rio de la Plata and the Uruguay, now 7 clothe 

 immeasurable tracts, and render them useless for pasture." 

 After the War of Deliverance, in many places where the 

 Cossacks had encamped, was found the Tick-seed,* a plant 

 allied to the Goose-foots, which is quite exclusively indi- 

 genous in the steppes on the Dnieper ; and in a similar 

 manner was the Bunias orientale spread with the Russian 

 hosts, in 1814, through Germany even to Paris, 



But such wanderings of plants also occur altogether 

 without the co-operation of mankind. The Seychelles 

 Nutf is driven by the ocean currents on to the shores of 

 the Maldives, and there germinates in the sand. The 

 earliest settlers in the Coral Islands, newly arisen in the 

 silent ocean, are the Cocoa Palm and the Pandanese or 

 Screw-pines, the fruit of which, protected by a hard shell, 

 is found everywhere drifting on those seas. Rivers carry 

 the seeds from the higher regions down into the lowlands, 

 and thus, for instance, forms which were originally peculiar 

 to the higher mountains are distributed on the banks of 

 the Alpine streams of southern Germany, in Bavaria and 



* Corispermum Marschallii. f Lodoiceasechellarum. 



