220 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 



{Linncea, vol. vii. (1832), p. 727 and foil.). There, in a not very 

 different latitude (37° 44' ) and climate, similar circumstances of a 

 high (in that case a much higher) mountain, surrounded by a warm 

 sea, have produced, in a very different Flora, similar results. 

 Hooker also, in his Introductory Essay to the Mora Indica (1855), 

 p. 39, states that " almost every Himalayan plant has a vertical 

 range of nearly 4,000 feet, and many of 8,000." These data stand 

 in striking contrast to the observations recorded by Watson and 

 others in Britain. 



Systematic Elements of the Flora. ^ 



The structural or systematic character of the plants composing the 

 Flora of the Peninsula may now be considered, with a view to enable 

 us more readily to form a comparison with that of other Eegions 

 in South Africa, or elsewhere. 



The proportion borne by the species of Monocotyledons 

 (680) to those of Dicotyledons (1,437) is as 1:211. This 

 is a high proportion for the former, and is doubtless due to 

 what is regarded as the favouring circumstance of a moist coast 

 climate. As we proceed inland the Monocotyledons appear to 

 diminish ; on the higher plateau of the Upper Eegion of the Cape 

 Colony (Nieuwveld, Uitvlugt, and Winterveld) they rank, according to 

 the observations of Drege, as 1 : 4-9. In England the proportion is 

 about 1 : 3"3 ; in Greenland as 1 : 2 ; in Greece as 1 : 5*7. These two 

 last are the extremes which I have been able to find recorded. 



It has been aptly remarked by Ernst Meyer, in the work I have 

 already cited, that " in the consideration of single families, two very 

 different points of view present themselves, viz., their absolute and 

 their relative numbers in our Flora in comparison with their numbers 

 in other Floras. The same family may be equally important to 

 a Flora in both respects, as, for example, Selaginese and Mesem- 

 brianthemeae in South Africa. But, as a matter of course, the most 

 numerous family of any particular Flora may be one least peculiar to 

 it ; while one wholly peculiar [as, e.g., Pen^eace^ in South Africa] 

 may be least numerously represented. ' ' The truth of this observation 

 will be presently illustrated. 



The following is a list of those Orders, twenty-four in number, 

 arranged according to their numbers in indigenous species,''' which 

 form at least 1 per cent, of the total Flora : — 



* In this and all subsequent statistical remarks indigenous species only are taken 

 into account ; i.e., excluding all plants which there is reason to believe or suspect 

 have been introduced by human agency. 



