DEVELOPMENT AND DISTRIBUTION OF LEGUMINOSE., 335 
The case may, perhaps, be stated briefly in the form of a 
summary of the paper. The present distribution of plants 
and animals is the algebraic sum of the responses made by 
organisms to their changing environment during the whole 
of the known geological record, and the present adjustment 
of the activities involved has been obtained only after ages 
of development during various geographical changes. As 
such, an analysis of a great and widely-spread Natural 
Order, such as Leguminose, might be expected to throw 
light upon the nature of former land connections by reason 
of the peculiar similarities, and dissimilarities, of mor- 
phology, exhibited by the plants in countries at present 
separated from each other. 
Leguminose contains many uniform types which are 
widely diffused throughout the tropics, and which, more- 
over, are in the main luxuriant in habit. In extra-tropical 
countries, such as Hurasia, South Africa, and Temperate 
Australia, these uniform tropical forms are represented by 
specialised types, which have developed along different 
directions in the different extra-tropical regions, while the 
primitive, or connecting forms, are to be found in the tropics. 
These specialised or secondary forms are mainly xerophytic. 
Furthermore, many widely diffused types of the tropics 
have not entered Australia, while others have a wide dis- 
tribution in America, and only occur rarely in Africa and 
Asia. Out of a total of nearly five hundred genera in 
Leguminose, only seven exist in New Zealand. 
It would appear that the present great tropical lands 
were connected during one or more previous periods, and 
that a genial and moist climate extended far beyond the 
tropical and subtropical regions. In these lands a few 
uniform primary types of Leguminosz had a wide distribu- 
tion. New Zealand was separated from the tropical world 
