CHAPTER III 



A comparison of the vegetation of Curasao, Aruba and 

 Bonaire witli tliat of Margarita. 



As Margarita is an island not far from Curagao, and very elabo- 

 rately studied with regard to its flora i), it is certainly worth 

 while to compare the floras of these four islands. 

 Johnston gives on page 297 a short comparison of the flora of 

 Margarita with that of Curasao, as it was known in 1909. He 

 arrives at the conclusion, based on the still very incomplete data 

 at his disposal (Suringar's journey) that of the 117 known Curagao 

 plants 50 had not yet been found on Margarita. 

 At present it appears from my investigations in the Systematical 

 Part that of the 399 wild plants in the Dutch West Indian Islands 

 150 have also been found on Margarita. So we have: 



Curagao, Aruba, Bonaire + Margarita 150 



Curagao, Aruba, Bonaire 249 



Margarita 440 

 399 590 



These numbers diverge considerably from those given by Johnston 



(p. 302), namely 400 for Curagao, of which 100 not on Margarita. 



From these numbers and more still from the figures of list p. 138, 



appears that the flora of Margarita is numerically very different 



from that' of the Dutch W. I. Islands, 



Margarita is much larger than the Dutch Islands. It is not only 



its size, however, which causes the larger number of species but 



still more the circumstance that higher mountains occur there, 



reaching a height of 800 metres. . 



Although Johnston says (p. 301) that his flora probably does not 



1) J. R. Johnston: flora of the Islands of Margarita and Coche. 



Contributions from the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University. New Series. 

 No. XXXVH (Printed June li 



