XLHI] DISTRIBUTION 127 



Cape Colony through East Africa to Abyssinia; it occurs in 

 S. America from Patagonia to Brazil and replaces Pinus on the 

 mountains of Costa Eica^; in the West Indies, Malaya, in the 

 Himalayas, China, Japan, Formosa 2, Tasmania, New Zealand, New 

 Caledonia, the Fiji Islands and New Guinea. Dacrydium has also 

 a fairly wide range in the southern hemisphere, but like the other 

 members of the family, except Podocarpus, it does not cross the 

 equator ; it is abundant in the Malay Archipelago* and occurs in 

 New Zealand, Tasmania, New Caledonia, New Guinea, and one 

 species grows in the Chilean swamps. Saxegothaea is a monotypic 

 genus in Chile and Acmopyle an imperfectly known New Caledonian 

 genus. Pherosphaera"' occurs in New South Wales, Victoria, and 

 Tasmania; Microcachrys, like Athrotaxis, is Tasmanian. Phyllo- 

 cladus has a wide range in Tasmania, New Zealand, Borneo, 

 New Guinea, and the Philippines. 



Some questions of exceptional interest from the point of view 

 of the geographical distribution of Conifers in the Pacific region 

 are ably discussed by Mr Guppy in the second volume of his 

 admirable book Observations of a Naturalist in the Pacific between 

 1896 and 1899. He deals especially with Agathis, Podocarpus, 

 and Dacrydium, and his remarks illustrate the , importance of 

 taking into account palaeobotanical data in any general discussion 

 of the problems suggested by the present and often discontinuous 

 range of existing genera. 'If,' he says, 'there is a real difficulty 

 in applying our canons of plant-dispersal to the distribution of 

 Dammara [Agathis], it is merely the same difficulty that has so 

 often perplexed the botanist with other Coniferous genera in 

 continental regions, such as, for instance, the occurrence of Pinus 

 excelsa on the far-removed mountains of the Himalayas, and the 

 existence of the Cedar in its isolated homes on the Atlas, the 

 Lebanon mountains, and the Himalayas. Such difficulties largely 

 disappear if we regard the present distribution of the Coniferae as 

 the remnant of what it was in an ancient geological period 5.' 



TAXINEAE. Taxus is chiefly a northern hemisphere genus ; 

 it occurs also in North Africa, Persia, India, the Philippines and 

 the Far Bast, and extends from Newfoundland to Pacific North 



1 Harshberger (11) p. 304. ^ Diimmer (12). ' Stapf (96). 



* Groom (16). * Guppy (06) p. 300. 



y 



