Origin of the Angiosioermous Flora of South Africa. 327 



We have only four alternatives as to the origin of the Cape 

 Province types. 



(1) They may have originated near where we find them now. 



(2) ,, ,, „ migrated from the North. 



(3) „ ,, ,, ,, ,, „ East. 



(4) „ ,, „ ,, ,, ,, West. 



Very little could be said for the fourth alternative if we interpret 

 it literally, though in Permian times, and perhaps later, there may 

 have been a direct western land-connection with America. With 

 regard to the second and third, they may in part or entirely be 

 covered by the first, as we can only form conjectures as to the 

 direction in which migration has taken place, e.g., an order poorly 

 represented in South Africa and richly developed in Australia, if 

 found nowhere else, may have originated in either country or in 

 a hypothetical land-connection between them. 



Before proceeding further I may state that the guiding ideas 

 (Leitende Ideen) with which Engler (1882), ix-xii) prefaces his 

 work, have also guided me in this essay and should be referred 

 to by anybody who makes a serious attempt to understand the 

 present distribution and the history of any Flora. Without the 

 theory of evolution, on which they are based, no attempt of arriving 

 at a satisfactory conclusion seems to have the slightest chance of 

 success. At the same time nobody can study such a problem as we 

 are dealing with, without perceiving that it throws sidelights on the 

 attempted explanations of evolution, which makes one and all of 

 them appear inadequate. 



For many years it used to be held almost as an axiom that the 

 Flora of South-West Cape Colony and South- West Australia were 

 closely allied. This, of course, was over-stating the case. On the 

 other hand, Diels (1906) seems to go too far in the opposite direction. 

 He states that the Flora of extra-Tropical West Africa is closely 

 connected with the vegetation of the East coast of the Australian 

 continent. This is already seen in the fact that the " Eremsea- 

 province" extends far to the east; but while the Flora of East 

 Australia is closely connected with the malesian-papuan vegetation, 

 this is not at all the case with the Flora of West Australia. This, 

 according to the author, is the most important difference between 

 East and West Australia. On the other hand, the author does not 

 admit the close connection between the Flora of South-West 

 Australia and the Flora of the Cape. In consequence of certain 

 geographical analogies between the two regions, there is in both 

 a predominance of the evergreen sclerophyll-formations, and the 

 general physiognomy of them is further made similar by the great 



