PLATE E. 
Agave and the Antillean Bridge. 
Figure 1. The Antillean Bridge at a later stage, after subsidence to 3,000 feet above the 
present level of the islands, showing further disruption isolating Cuba, St. Croix, Barbados, 
St. Lucia, and Martinique; the southernmost Caribbees still connected with the mainland, 
though the continental shelf to-day bears only the Leeward Islands. 
This map (to be compared with the distribution table) indicates a reason why the species 
of St. Croix, Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, and Martinique are less similar than those of the 
islands from Anguilla to Dominica. The occurrence in the Leeward Islands of one of the 
Caribaeae most closely related to the species of Antigua and Guadeloupe, and in Grenada of a 
species intermediate between those of Barbados and the more northern islands, do not find 
explanation in these maps. 
Figure 2. The distribution, source, and offshoots of the principal groups of Agave in the 
West Indies, outlined in red on a map showing the supposed extent of the land at a time when 
they had fully traversed it. Cuba, with its wealth of forms, evidently was the primary center 
of dispersal. The probability that the endemic Agave of the Caymans will prove to be more 
like the Cuban than the Jamaican species, and the reason that those found on the latter island 
are more closely allied to Haitian than to Cuban species, are evident. 
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