34 Hemarks on Botany. 



species ; while only 39 of tlie genera are found on Norfolk Island, 

 represented there by 70 species. 



This analysis indicates a closer affinity to the plants of this 

 colony, than to those of any of the other places named. The 

 relationship, however, is more in the genera than in the species, 

 which, as a rule, are widely different. This remark would equally 

 apply to any comparison which might be draAvn with those of 

 New Zealand. Taken as a whole, the Flora of the Island is most 

 peculiar and very interesting, agreeing, as has been shewn, in 

 many respects with that of this country, yet presenting a marked 

 distinction in the total absence of Proteaceoe, and the extreme 

 rarity of Leguminosce. With New Zealand it is more particularly 

 allied by Edwardsia, Metrosideros, arborescent Dracophyllums, 

 and other genera ; with New Caledonia principally by its palms ; 

 and with Norfolk Island by the frequent occurrence of such 

 plants as Hibiscus Patersonii, Pisonia JBrunoniana, Xantlioxylon 

 Ploxkburnia, Achras cosiata, and the curious little parasite Viscum 

 ojjuntioides, all of which are so largely represented on both islands 

 as to have led me to infer, formerly, that there was a greater 

 connection between the botany of the two places than is really 

 the case. 



There are some singular features in the vegetation of this little 

 island, which afford abundance of food for reflection. Whence, 

 it may be asked, came that extraordinary fig tree, the single 

 species of its genus ? Whence came those Palms, apparently 

 confined to this one locality ? Whence came the settlers' 

 " Wedding Flower," that beautiful iridaceous plant, aiid the 

 solitary representative of its family, all of which were specially 

 referred to and described ia my previous report ? And whence 

 came the other plants, of which we had no previous knowledge ? 

 Can it be that they were created for this place only ? or, 

 were their seeds wafted hither from some unknown country, 

 through oceanic influence ? Were they, on the doctrine of 

 chance, generated spontaupously ? or, were they brought in 

 embryo by some meteoric stone, as lately suggested might be 

 the case, by an eminent authority ? These are all questions 

 which may occur in attempting to reason by what means this 

 island first became clothed with plants of such a novel and inter- 

 esting character. 



As I neither believe in special creation, nor in the agency of 

 the ocean, except in cases such as the cocoa-nut and other similar 

 fruits, which are undoubtedly floated from one land to another, 

 nor in spontaneous generation, nor in the meteoric stone theory, 

 I am constrained to adopt, as the only reasonable solution of the 

 difficulty, that this island, Norfolk Island, New Zealand, New 

 Caledonia, and the islands of the Western Pacific formed at one 

 time either a portion of this or another vast continent. 



