ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 99 



de la Sierra, and all the countries between the Orinoco, the 

 Rio Negro, the Amazons, and Puruz), of Africa, Mada- 

 gascar, Borneo, and Central and Eastern Asia, the thought 

 rises involuntarily ill the mind that we may not yet 

 know the third, or probably even the fifth part of the 

 plants existing on the earth ! Drege has collected 7092 

 species of phaenogamous plants in South Africa alone. 

 (See Meyer's pflanzen geographische Documente, S. 5 and 

 12.) He believes that the Mora of that district consists 

 of more than 11000 phseiiogamous species, while on a 

 surface of equal area (12000 German, or 192000 English 

 square geographical miles) von Koch has described in 

 Germany or Switzerland 3300, and Decandolle in France 

 3645 species of phsenogamous plants. I would also recall 

 that even now new Genera, (some even consisting of tall 

 forest trees), are being discovered in the small West Indian 

 Islands which have been visited by Europeans for three 

 centuries, and in the vicinity of large commercial towns. 

 These considerations, which I propose to develop in further 

 detail at the close of the present annotation, make it 

 probable that the actual number of species exceeds that 

 spoken of in the old myth of the Zend-Avesta, which says 

 that " the Primeval Creating Power called forth from the 

 blood of the sacred bull 120000 different forms of plants !" 

 If, then, we cannot look for any direct scientific solution 

 of the question of how many forms of the vegetable kingdom, 

 including leafless Cryptogamia (water Algse, funguses, and 

 lichens), Characese, liver-worts, mosses, Marsilaceae, Lycopo- 

 diacea3, and ferns, exist on the dry land and in the ocean 



