162 ALTERNATE (JLAOIAL PERIODS [Chap. XIL 



in the low intervening hot countries. On the Silla of 

 Caraccas, the illustrious Humboldt long ago found 

 species belonging to genera characteristic of the Cordil- 

 lera. 



In Africa, several forms characteristic of Europe and 

 some few representatives of the flora of the Cape of 

 Good Hope occur on the mountains of Abyssinia. At 

 the Cape of Good Hope a very few European species, be- 

 lieved not to have been introduced by man, and on the 

 mountains several representative European forms are 

 found, which have not been discovered in the inter- 

 tropical parts of Africa. Dr. Hooker has also lately 

 shown that several of the plants living on the upper parts 

 of the lofty island of Fernando Po and on the neigh- 

 bouring Cameroon mountains, in the Gulf of Giiinea, 

 are closely related to those on the mountains of Abys- 

 sinia, and likewise to those of temperate Europe. It 

 now also appears, as I hear from Dr. Hooker, that some 

 of these same temperate plants have been discovered 

 by the Eev. E. T. Lowe on the mountains of the Cape 

 Verde islands. This extension of the same temper- 

 ate forms, almost under the equator, across the whole 

 continent of Africa and to the mountains of the Cape 

 Verde archipelago, is one of the most astonishing facts 

 ever recorded in the distribution of plants. 



On the Himalaya, and on the isolated mountain- 

 ranges of the peninsula of India, on the heights of 

 Ceylon, and on the volcanic cones of Java, many plants 

 occur, either identically the same or representing each 

 other, and at the same time representing plants of 

 Europe, not found in the intervening hot lowlands. 

 A list of the genera of plants collected on the loftier 

 peaks of Java, raises a picture of a collection made on 



