736 REPORT — 1881. 



Australia, and New Zealand contain each an assemblage of plants difFerinof more 

 by far amongst themselves than do the floras of Europe, North Asia, and North 

 America ; thej- contain, in fact, few species in common, except the Antarctic ones 

 that inhabit their mountains. These south temperate plants have their represen- 

 tative species and genera on the mountains of the tropics, ench in their own 

 meridian only, and there they meet immigrants from all latitudes of the northern 

 hemisphere. Thus the plants of Fuegia extend northward along the Andes, 

 ascending as they advance. Australian genera reappear on the lofty mountain of 

 Kini-balu in Borneo ; New Zealand ones on the mountains of New Caledonia ; and 

 the most interesting herbarium ever brought from Central Africa, that of Mr. .Joseph 

 Thomson, from the highlands of the lake districts, contains many of the endemic 

 genera, and even species of the Cape of Good Hope. Nor does the northern re- 

 presentation of the south temperate flora cease within the tropics ; it extends to 

 the middle north temperate zone ; Chilian genera reappearing in Mexico and 

 ■California ; South African in North Africa, in the Canary Islands, and even in 

 Asia Minor ' ; and Australian in the Khasia Mountains of East Bengal, in East 

 ■China and Japan. 



So too there is a representation of genera in the southern temperate continents, 

 feeble numerically, compared to what the north presents, but strong in other 

 respects. This isshowu by the families of Profeace;e, Cycadese, and Restiaceae, 

 abounding in South Africa and Australia alone, though not a single .opecies or 

 •even genus of these families is common to the two countries ; by New Zealand, 

 with a flora differing in almost every element from the Chilian, yet having a few 

 species of both calceolaria and fuchsia, genera otherwise purely Amt-rican ; whilst 

 as regards Australia and New Zealand, it is difficult to say which are the most 

 puzzfing — the contrasts, or the similarities, which their animal and vegetable pro- 

 ductions present. 



These features of the vegetation of the south temperate and Antarctic regions, 

 though they simulate those of the north temperate and Arctic, may not originate 

 from precisely similar causes. In the absence of such evidence as the fossil 

 animals and plants of the North affords,- there is no proof that the Antarctic plants 

 found on the south temperate alps, or the south temperate plants found in the 

 mountains of the tropics, originated in the south; though this appears probable 

 from the absence in the south of so many of the leading families of plants and 

 animals of the north, no less than from the number of endemic forms the south 

 contains. These considerations have favoured the speculation of the former exist- 

 ence, during a warmer period than the present, of a centre of creation in the 

 Southern Ocean, in the fonn of either a continent or of an archipelago, from which 

 both the Antarctic and Southern endemic forms radiated. I havemyself suggested 

 continental or insular extension ^ as a means of aiding that wide dispersion of 

 species over the Southern Ocean, which it is difficult to explain without such 

 intervention ; and the discovery of beds of fossil trunks of trees in Kerguelen's 

 Island, testifies to that place "having enjoyed a warmer climate than its present 

 one. 



The rarity in the existlnof Archipelago (Kerguelen's Island, the Crozets, and 

 Prince Edward's Island) of any of the endemic genera of the south temperate 

 flora, or of representatives of them, is, however, an argument against such land, if 



' Pelargonium Endlicherianum in the Taurus is a remarkable instance. 



2 The only fossil leaves hitherto found in higher southern latitudes are those of 

 beeches, closely allied to existing southern species, brought by Darwin ft-om Fuegia. 

 In one locality alone beyond the forest region of the south have fossil plants been 

 found ; there were silicified trunks of trees in lava beds of Kerguelen's Island (dis- 

 covered by myself forty years ago). It is deeply to be regretted that searches for 

 shales containing fossils were not made either by the ' Challenger ' expedition or by 

 the various ' transit of Venus ' expeditions that have recently visited this interesting 

 island. 



' Flora Antarctica, pp. 2.30, 240. See also Moseley in Journ. Linn. See. Botany 

 vol. XV. p. 485, and Ohscrratiom on the Botany of Kcrgtwleii's Island, by myself, in 

 the Philoso2)Mcal Transactions, v. 168, p. 15. 



