64 



THE WORLD Or LIFE 



Floras of Tropical America 



Note. — The number of Trinidad plants is from a Herbarium 

 List by Mr. J. H. Hart, F.L.S., Superintendent of the Botanical 

 Gardens, published in 1908. He states, however, that "a large 

 amount of material has not been arranged under natural orders " 

 and that "the later added specimens have not been arranged for 

 several years past." But he adds, " As it now stands, there is 

 a good representation of the Trinidad flora." 



Mr. W. B. Broadway of Tobago, who has lived several years in 

 Trinidad and has studied its flora, informs me that from his own 

 observation he believes that many hundreds of additional species 

 remain to be collected; and this is what we should expect, as the 

 island is a continental one ; while Jamaica, though larger, is almost 

 oceanic in character, and is therefore almost certain to have a less 

 complete representation of the tropical American flora than the 

 former island. 



The great work on the flora of Mexico and Central America 

 deals, unfortunately for my present purpose, with an area in 

 which temperate and tropical, arid and humid conditions are 

 intermingled to a greater extent even than in the case of 

 British India already referred to. Mexico itself comprises 

 about four-fifths of the whole area, and nearly half its surface 

 is north of the tropic and is largely composed of lofty plateaux 

 and mountains. It thus supports a vegetation of a generally 

 warm-temperate but rather arid type; and these same condi- 

 tions with a similar flora, also prevail over the great plateau 

 of southern Mexico. This type of vegetation extends even 



