442 APPENDIX G. 



per cent, in the upper region. Of these Mediterranean species 

 the large majority (more than two-thirds) are widely distributed 

 plants, several of them extending to the mountains of Asia 

 Minor, and twenty species only are exclusively confined to the 

 Great Atlas and to the mountains of Southern Spain, the 

 Lesser Atlas, or the Pyrenees. There is nothing in the distri- 

 bution of these latter plants to indicate any special connection 

 between the Atlas and any one of the moiintain regions above 

 mentioned. Six Atlas species are common to Southern Spain 

 and the Algerian Atlas, six more are known only on the moun- 

 tains of Southern Spain, five have been hitherto supposed to be 

 peculiar to the Lesser Atlas, and three are elsewhere confined 

 to the Pyrenees. 



Some further light may be thrown on the origin of the 

 Great Atlas Flora by considering the affinities of the plants 

 which are reckoned in our list as endemic in Marocco, nearly 

 all being confined, so far as we know, to the chain of the 

 Great Atlas. Although all of these, along with some that we 

 have classed as mere varieties, would be counted as distinct 

 species by many botanists, a considerable number, amounting to 

 more than a quarter of the whole, are, according to the views 

 expressed elsewhere by the writer,' to be ranked as sub-species. 

 But here again we fail to discover indications of special 

 relations between the Great Atlas Flora and that of neigh- 

 bouring mountain regions. Ranking as sub-species twenty-one 

 out of the seventy-five endemic forms enumerated in our list, 

 we find that ten of these are allied to widely spread Mediterra- 

 nean species, three are related to plants of Central Europe, 

 three to species common to Algeria and Southern Spain, three 

 more to species confined to the Spanish peninsula, and two to 

 endemic Algerian forms. 



If we scrutinise in the same manner the endemic forms of 

 the higher region of the Great Atlas, we find that out of the 

 thirty-five enumerated eight, or less than one-fourth, are to be 

 ranked as sub-species. Of these, three are nearly allied to wide- 

 spread Mediterranean species, one to a plant common to Spain 

 and Algeria, two to endemic Spanish species, one to an Algerian 



' See ' Spioilegium Florae Maroccana3,' in Proceedings of the Linnceaa 

 Society, 'Botany,' vol. xvi. parts 93 to 97 inclusive. 



