724 
The American Naturalist, 
Greve, Hilsenberg, Bojer, Goudot, Breon, Vesco, Grandidier, Thomp- 
son, Lyall, Ellis, and others, most of whom collected plants chiefly in 
the east, north, and north-west parts of the island. * * * * 
Within the last five years our knowledge of the flora of the island 
has been very materially increased, so that, whereas until recently 
less than two thousand species of plants were known, there are now 
named and described about four thousand one hundred, though many 
of them will doubtless prove repetitions when they are properly com- 
pared and worked out. * * * * 
In Madagascar a considerable area is covered by primeval forests. 
On the eastern side of the island, — that is, the part eastward of the 
highest range of mountains, which forms the chief watershed, — there 
is a forest which extends probably eighteen hundred miles from north 
to south, almost, if not entirely, without a break, and which, if what 
is frequently stated be true, continues round the island, forming a 
complete, or almost complete, belt some distance from the sea. * 
It is grievous to relate, however, that the forests of Madagascar are 
being destroyed in the most ruthless and wholesale manner by the na- 
tives. Every year thousands of acres of country are cleared, the trees 
being burned to the ground, and that for no other purpose than to 
provide ashes as manure for a mere handful or two of beans, or a few 
cobs of Indian corn, or a little rice to be grown in the clearing. * 
The following figures will show at a glance the number of natural 
orders and generas of flowering plants represented in Madagascar as 
compared with those known throughout the world according to 
Bentham and Hooker's " Genera Plantarum " : 
, 970. 
Of the four thousand one hundred plants at present known in Mada- 
gascar, about three thousand (or three-fourths of the total flora) are, 
remarkable to say, endemic. Even of the Granicueae and Cyperaceae 
about two-fifths of the plants in each order are peculiar to the island. 
There is but one natural order confined to Madagascar, the Chlae- 
naceae, with twenty-four species, which, however, M. Baillon places 
under Ternstroemiaceae. Of ferns more than a third are endemic, and 
of orchids as much as five-sixths, facts which in themselves are suffi- 
cient to give a very marked individuality to the character of the flora. 
— Richard Baron, m Jour. Linn. Society. 
