494 PHYTOGEOGRAPHICAL REMARKS 



portant part as savannah plants (Cyperaceae, Melastomataceael are repre- 

 sented in the flora with the same percentage as in Surinam 



To make comparisons with French Guyana is impossible with the 

 present state of our knowledge of the flora of that country. Sagot's 

 "Catalogue" is far too incomplete for this purpose. But what we know 

 about that country from books of travel makes it very probable that it 

 has a great resemblance with Surinam. 



From what precedes it appears that a thorough comparison of Guyana 

 with the Amazon district is impossible on account of our insufficient know- 

 ledge of the primitive wood of Guyana. Yet in my opinion the climatic as 

 well as the botanic data indicate that the representation of Martius, who 

 limits the Hylaea to about i° north, lat , as is also done by Grisebach on 

 the map of his "Vegetation der Erde", is not in accordance with the facts 

 On the contrary, I think it probable that, barring the littoral district, the 

 Hylaea must be represented as extending over the greater part of French 

 Guyana and Surinam. In the latter country it grows narrower by the in- 

 fluence of the Wilhelmina range which extends to the north-west, and is 

 then continued as a narrow strip north of the mountains of British Guyana 

 where it gradually passes into the type of the primitive woods on the 

 Orinoco. 



The accuracy of this supposition can only be proved by a continued 

 botanical and geographical investigation, as well of Surinam as of the 

 neighbouring regions 



