AUSTRAL-AMERICAN REGIONS. 



101 



The fact of there being "no trees upon the Falkland Islands," will 

 account for the absence of all woodland plants ; but hardly for that of 

 PerneUya acuminata or the bush-cranberry, Escallonia serrata, Embo- 

 thrium coccineum, and some twenty of the most abundant open-ground 

 Fuegian species of plants. 



On the other hand, Gaudichaud's List includes about thirty species 

 of plants growing on the Falkland Islands, that we did not meet with 

 in Terra del Fuego : the most remarkable being Oxalis enneaphylla, 

 Myriophyllum elatinoides and M. ternatum, Valeriana sedifolia. Cal- 

 ceolaria Fothergilli, Chlorgea Gaudichaudii, Sisyrinchium filifolium, 

 Trichomanes flabellula, and Schizcea Australis. 



Of Ferns and Phaenogamous plants indigenous on the Falkland 

 Islands, one hundred and eleven species are enumerated by Gaudi- 

 chaud :* deducting the above thirty, would leave eighty-one species 

 ascertained by ourselves to be common to Terra del Fuego : while our 

 remaining eighty-nine species seem not to occur on the Falkland 

 Islands. 



Comparison with Northern Patagonia. At the distance from 

 the Rio Negro of only fourteen and a half degrees nearly due 

 South, the vegetable growth presented but two species in common ; 

 the Apium (whose identity was not at the time suspected), and the 

 Agropyrum. Even the Falkland Islands furnish but one additional 

 species, the Limosella : for the Callitriche, on Gaudichaud's List, has 

 not as yet been observed at the Rio Negro. 



* Settlements having been attempted by Europeans on the Falkland Islands, where 

 the imported " cattle and horses have run wild and sustained themselves," the following 

 fifteen plants on Gaudichaud's List were doubtless also introduced by the settlers : 



" Poa annua, Veronica serpyllifolia, 



compressa, Urtica urens, 



Lolium perenne, Thlaspi bursa-pastoris, 



Cerastium vulgatum, Rumex patientia, 



Stellaria media, acetosa, 



Sonchus oleraceus, acetosella, and 



Senecio vulgaris, Trifolium repens ;" 



Achillea tomentosa, 



We saw none of these species in Terra del Fuego; nor any other, liable in the slightest 

 degree to the suspicion of having been introduced from abroad by foreigners. But as 

 the Vincennes remained several weeks in Orange Harbor, and procured there a supply 

 of wood and water, it is possible, that some domestic weeds, unintentionally disseminated, 

 may be found there by subsequent visitors. 



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