Origin of the Angiospermous Flora of South Africa. 359 



found in Mauritius and Bourbon. Agaitria, a genus of Ericacece, is 

 found in Madagascar, the Mascarene Islands, the plateau of Central 

 Africa, and the Cameroon Mountains in West Africa. An Acacia, 

 found in Mauritius and Bourbon {A. heterophylla) can hardly be 

 separated specifically from Acacia koa of the Sandwich Islands. 

 The genus Pandanus, or screw-pine, has sixteen species in the three 

 islands — Mauritius, Rodriguez, and the Seychelles — all being 

 peculiar, and none ranging beyond a single island." 



" Of palms there are fifteen species belonging to ten genera, and 

 all these genera are peculiar to the islands. We have here ample 

 evidence that plants exhibit the same anomalies of distribution in 

 these islands as do the animals, though in a smaller proportion ; 

 while they also exhibit some of the transitional stages by which 

 these anomalies have, in all probability, been brought about, 

 rendering quite unnecessary any other changes in the distribution of 

 sea and land than physical and geological evidence warrants." 



" In my * Geographical Distribution of Animals ' I have remarked 

 on the relation between the insects of Madagascar and those of 

 South Temperate Africa, and have speculated on a great Southern 

 extension of the continent at the time when Madagascar was united 

 with it. As supporting this view I now quote Mr. Bentham's 

 remarks on the Compositae. He says : ' The connections of the 

 Mascarene endemic Compositce, especially those of Madagascar 

 itself, are eminently with the Southern and sub-Tropical African 

 races; the more tropical races, PhtcheinecB, &c., may be rather more 

 of an Asiatic type.' He further says that the Composite Flora is 

 almost as strictly endemic as that of the Sandwich Islands, and that 

 it is much diversified, with evidences of great antiquity, while it 

 shows insular characteristics in the tendency to tall shrubby or 

 arborescent forms in several of the endemic or prevailing genera." 



Balfour (1888, introductory chapter) has given some interesting 

 speculations on the composition and probable origin of the Flora of 

 Socotra. Besides other most interesting information bearing on our 

 subject, he gives a table showing the distribution of eleven genera 

 with endemic species in the Phanerogamic Flora of Socotra which are 

 confined to the African continent. Of these no less than seven 

 occur in South Africa : Euclea, Ectadiopsis, Camptoloma, Graderia, 

 Lasiocorys, Bahiana, Hmmanthus. He points out that in Socotra 

 we have, besides others, African elements of several types. Besides 

 the general African types we have those kinships with forms of 

 sporadic African distribution of many of the most peculiar plants of 

 Socotra, and in Helichrysum, Bahiana, Hcemanthics , Draccena, 

 Begonia, and other Socotran plants of like kinship we have tha 



