INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. lxix 



more plentiful crop of Microfungi could be obtained. For Algae I have already 

 remarked the shore is not favourable, and we did not devote any time to its 

 exploration. In the streams and pools of the island a small collection of 

 Algae and allied forms was obtained, but I do not think a rich harvest is to be 

 gathered. 



Of the nineteen species of Vascular Cryptogams, one is a hydropterideous 

 species of India and west Africa ; the rest are Ferns. Eleven of these are 

 cosmopolitan in their range in the tropics, some of them being cosmopolitan in 

 its most extended sense, and two are widely spread in the old world. Three 

 have a restricted old-world distribution, and support the facts of distribution 

 I have noticed in the case of the Phanerogams ; thus, Onychium melanolepis 

 belongs to the group of plants having its centre of distribution in north- 

 east Africa and south-west Asia, but it does not range beyond this region, 

 being confined to Abyssinia, Arabia, and Persia ; and Pellcea viridis and 

 Gymnogramme cor data are both African forms which do not reach Asia, the 

 former extending into the adjacent tropical islands; whilst the latter has a 

 more sporadic geographical area, occurring in south Africa, Angola, and 

 Bourbon. Two species are endemic — Adianlum Balfourii and Asplenium 

 Schweinfurthii. 



Sixteen species of Musci and Hepaticae are known — eleven being Musci 

 and five Hepaticae, Six of the former and two of the latter are endemic. 

 Mr Mitten says of them that, in point of affinity, they " approach more nearly 

 to the Indian flora than, so far as is yet known, to the African." 



Characese, of which three members occur on the island, is interesting, 

 because one of the species — Char a socotrensis — is endemic, and is a form con- 

 necting two hitherto well-defined sections of the genus. 



The 130 species of Lichens, of which sixty-nine, or more than one half, are 

 endemic, fall into forty-seven genera. A fourth of the species are distributed 

 in warmer regions of the world, whilst another fourth includes species extend- 

 ing to Europe. 



Of the twenty-seven representatives of other groups of Fungi, eleven are 

 endemic. A large proportion of these are Microfungi. None of them call for 

 special mention. Algae and allied groups number fifty-eight species, only two 

 of them being endemic ; most of the plants have a very wide distribution ; a 

 few of the seaweeds are more local ; but there is no point of particular interest 

 to note. 



I have in the preceding pages so fully exposed in tabular form the features 

 of the flora of Socotra, that the nature of its elements and its relations require 

 no further exposition, and the following summary of its characters, based upon 

 the facts that bave been already set forth, may be given. 



