ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 187 



62^-, S. latitude) a small grass, Aira antarctica (Hooker, 

 Icon. Plant. Vol. ii. Tab. 150) which is "the most antarctic 

 flowering plant hitherto discovered." 



In Deception Island, of the same group, S. lat. 62 50', 

 lichens only are found, and not a single species of grass ; and 

 so also farther to the south-east, in Cockburn Island (lat. 

 64 12'), near Palmer's Land, there were only found Leca- 

 noras, Lecideas, and five Mosses, among which was our 

 German Bryum argenteum : " this seems to be the ultima 

 Thule of antarctic vegetation." Farther to the south, land- 

 cryptogamic, as well as phaenogamic, vegetation is entirely 

 wanting. In the great bay formed by Victoria Land, on a 

 small island which lies opposite to Mount Herschel (S. lat. 

 71 49'), and in Franklin Island, 92 geographical miles 

 North of the great volcano Mount Erebus, 12400 English 

 feet high (latitude 76 7' South), Hooker found not a 

 single trace of vegetable life. It is quite different in respect 

 to the extension even of the forms of higher vegetable 

 organisation in the high northern latitudes. Phsenogamous 

 plants there approach 18J nearer to the pole than in the 

 southern hemisphere : Walden Island (N. lat. 80J) has 

 still ten species. The antarctic phsenogamous vegetation is 

 also poorer in species at corresponding distances from the 

 pole (Iceland has five times as many flowering plants as the 

 southern group of Auckland and Campbell Islands), but 

 this less varied antarctic vegetation is from climatic reasons 

 more luxuriant and succulent. (Compare Hooker, Flora 

 antarctica, p. vii., 74, and 215, with Sir James Boss, Voyage 

 in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, 1839-1843, Vol. ii 

 p. 335-342.) 



