KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 50. NIO 3. 69 



Summary: Of 162 species belong to tlie 



South Patagonian-Fuegian element 82, i % 



Termophilous element- 8,6 % 



Endemic element - 9,3 % 



It is, of course, no new discovery that most of the Falkland plants point 

 towards a Magellan origin, a fact well known to Hooker and all succeeding botanists, 

 who have given attention to this qnestion. Not less than 82 "„ are more or less 

 common Magellanic plants. It is not surprising to find that a number of forest plants 

 are among these, nor that the steppe element is not especially pronounced; for there 

 is a great difference between the climate of the Magellan steppes and that of the 

 Falkland Islands, the latter more approaching that of the deciduous forest zone in 

 subantarctic America. But in the Falklands the periodicity is much less marked, and 

 allows the occurrence of a number of species from the rainy, evergreen forests. 



In order to arrive at any conclusions as to the manner in whicli the flora 

 immigrated and to find an explanation for the floristic identity between subantarctic 

 America and the Falklands, we shall summarize briefly our knowledge of the geo- 

 graphical development of the lands concerned. 



Unfortunately we know very littly for certain. Regarding Patagonia and 

 Fuegia, it is probable that in preglacial time the land rose to a greater height than 

 now. This is indicated by numerous transversal depressions (the origin of which is 

 not merely tectonic), which are submerged below sea-level. As an example we may 

 chose Otway and Skyring Waters, described by Halle {29). Botli of them occupy the 

 bottoms of great preglacial depressions, and a study of Patagonian geography shows at 

 once that they exactly correspond to the large trans-andine depressions further north ; 

 they must have originated in the same manner and have been submerged. We do 

 not know when this submergence took place. As far as can be seen now, only one 

 fact is known to indicate that the land remained at a higher level even af t er the 

 recession of the ice, viz. the nature of Fitzroy Channel between Otway and Skyring. 

 It is evident, that this channel is a drowned river-valley, and as it has been cut 

 down in glacial and fluvioglacial deposits, it must be of postglacial origin and con- 

 sequently the land was higher when the erosion took place. The emergence was 

 foUowed by a submergence resulting in the present conditions. »All facts seem to 

 demand that the upheaval of the land continued till the present sea-level was not 

 only reached, but considerably exceeded. At the time of maximum upheaval the land 

 has been elevated sufficiently to allow the valley to be eroded to a depth of 30 m. 

 below the present sea-level» (Halle, p. 109; for the explanation of the figure 30 

 m., see his paper). 



There are traces of a postglacial submergence in various parts of Fuegia; 

 terraces, apparently marine, have been described by Darwin, Nordenskjöld, J. G. 

 Andersson and Halle, but as yet it has not been possible to arrive at a satis- 



