244 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 
the flora of Abingdon is exclusively Galapageian, and the common ele- 
ment is greatest with Charles, Albemarle, and Chatham Islands. 
ALBEMARLE ISLAND. 
Albemarle is the largest island of the archipelago, and extends through 
about one and a quarter degrees of latitude. It is L-shaped and crossed 
by the equator near its northern extremity. There are many craters 
upon it, some of them having been active within historic times. The 
five largest range from 770 to 1570 m. in height. The island seems to 
have been explored chiefly if not exclusively along its western shore, 
the greater part of the plants collected upon it having been secured 
about Iguana Cove, Point Christopher, Elizabeth Bay, Tagus Cove, 
Banks Cove, and Black Bight. The island was first visited for botanical 
purposes by Macrae (whose name is also written McRae), a Scotch 
gardener, sent by the London Horticultural Society, on the voyage of 
the “Blonde,” when in 1825 that vessel, under the command of the 
seventh Lord Byron, conveyed back from England the king and queen 
of the Sandwich Islands. Macrae remained eight days upon the 
island, and collected there 41 different kinds of plants. Albemarle has 
since been visited for botanical purposes by Darwin, Andersson, the 
Hassler Expedition, Wolf, Lee, Baur, Snodgrass and Heller. The broad 
southern portion of the island is relatively well watered and possesses 
a rich and copious vegetation, while the northern parts are described by 
Darwin as miserably sterile—an account to a great extent confirmed 
even by those who have visited the island at a more favorable season. 
In all 205 flowering plants and ferns have been found on Albemarle, 
and of these, 17 are to our present knowledge confined to this island. 
Thus the peculiar element (about 8 per cent) is less than that of any 
of the other large islands. Among the noteworthy plants of Albemarle 
are a well marked and apparently abundant Scalesia (S. gummif ora) 
confined to the island, and the problematic Pleuropetalum Darwintt, 
which elsewhere occurs only upon James Island, although close con- 
geners are found in Ecuador and Costa Rica. The different plant 
families occurring on Albemarle are represented in about the proportion 
in which they occur in the whole archipelago. Of the species of Albe- 
marle nearly half are common to Charles and Chatham, and about one- 
third to James, while scarcely more than one-fifth have been found on 
Indefatigable, although it attains about the same height and lies directly 
between Albemarle and Chatham. 
