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362 PLANTS, SEEDS, AND CURRENTS 



On April 24, 1838, there reached San Miguel a party of scientific 

 men, which included Guthnick, a native of Berne, Hochstetter and 

 his son Charles, and Gygax, a Swiss mineralogist. From the account 

 which Seubert gives in the preface of his Flora Azorica it appears 

 that Guthnick, after forming the project of investigating the little- 

 known flora of this group, received the advice of De Candolle, and 

 that the Hochstetters were his associates in the botanical exploration. 

 The party afterwards visited Terceira and Fayal, and here they parted, 

 the Hochstetters proceeding to Flores and Corvo in a vessel placed 

 at their disposal by Mr. Dabney, the American Consul-general, 

 whilst Guthnick during their absence returned to Europe. The 

 Hochstetters subsequently visited Pico and ascended the mountain, 

 and left the islands in August. I have not been able to discover 

 whether Guthnick published an account of his visit to the islands. 

 Some of his descriptions of new Azorean species are given in Seubert' s 

 work. Among the botanical papers accredited to him in the Royal 

 Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers none are concerned with the 

 Azores. As regards the Hochstetters, it may be said that their 

 collections and notes formed the basis of Seubert' s Flora Azorica 

 (1844). They worked out the zones of vegetation on the great 

 cone of Pico ; and it is to their labours that the scientific world was 

 first indebted for an accurate knowledge of the Azorean native 

 flora. Some of their principal results were first published in a sketch 

 of the flora entitled " Ubersicht der Flora der azorischen Inseln " by 

 Seubert and Hochstetter, which is given in Wiegmann's Archiv fur 

 Naturgeschichte, Berlin, 1843, a paper mentioned but not consulted 

 by either Watson or Trelease. It contains a large coloured plate 

 illustrating the zones of vegetation on the cone of Pico, the plants 

 characteristic of each zone being named. But the bulk of the work 

 of the Hochstetters was incorporated in Seubert' s Flora Azorica, 

 which was issued in the following year, a work which held the field 

 until Watson's monograph appeared in 1870 in Godman's Natural 

 History of the Azores, and one that still stands foremost as an account 

 of the native flora. 



H. C. Watson was the next botanist to visit the group. His stay 

 in the islands covered four months, from May to September 1842, 

 during which time he occupied a cabin in H.M.S. Styx, then engaged 

 in the survey of the archipelago. The exigencies of the survey 

 rendered the conditions by no means favourable for his purpose; 

 but he obtained collections from Corvo, Flores, Fayal, and Pico. 

 His examination of the mountain of Pico was restricted to an ascent 

 of the summit with the surveying party from the ship, and to two 

 other excursions on the lower slopes; but he expressly states that 

 the conditions did not allow him to obtain exact information con- 

 cerning the vertical range of the plants on the mountain. This 

 regret was expressed in a paper in the botanical publication below 

 named for 1843: and it is a pity that in his memoir in Godman's 

 work, published many years after, he depreciates the work of his 

 predecessors in this respect. In his criticism (p. 114) of Seubert's 

 Flora Azorica he gives as an instance of the " guesses that might 

 prove only erroneous records " the " alleged ranges of altitudes at 



