THE AZORES 



415 



fuel, land has long been as much valued for the wood that grows upon 

 it, as for the food raised from it (pp. 393-5). 



5. The affinities of the native flora are then discussed, and it is 

 shown that the characteristic plants of the woods, the moors, the 

 ponds and lakes, and the seashore, exhibit a gradually extending 

 scale of connections with the outer world, the connections being 

 least with the plants of the woods and greatest with those of the 

 seashore, the varying degree of isolation thus implied reflecting 

 the differences in the history of the dispersing agencies. It is pointed 

 out that this principle is of wide application to insular floras, although, 

 on account of their lesser antiquity, it has been unable to find its 

 full expression in the islands of the Azores. Though geographical 

 isolation often counts for much in the differentiation of oceanic 

 floras, it is shown that antiquity may largely counteract the effects 

 of contiguity to a continent. The example is taken of the Canaries, 

 a group probably far more ancient than that of the Azores. Although 

 only some fifty miles from the nearest mainland as compared with 

 800 miles in the case of the Azores, the Canaries hold a flora that 

 is far more differentiated, the proportion of peculiar species being 

 at least three times as great (pp. 398-400). 



6. After tabulating the distribution of the characteristic plants 

 of the Azores according to their station, the writer shows how they 

 illustrate the progressive widening of the connections with the outer 

 world. With the plants of the woods the most conspicuous features 

 are these. Whilst mainly non-European, they are largely Canarian 

 and Madeiran, that is to say, Macaronesian. On the other hand, 

 the affinities of the plants of the upland moors and of those of the 

 ponds and lakes are very markedly European, there being no American 

 connection that is not also European. In the case of the plants 

 of the seashore, though predominantly European, we get the first 

 indications of independent and direct connections with the American 

 side of the Atlantic. Though the affinities of the flora are pre- 

 eminently European, a possible derivation of European plants by 

 the way of the mountains of North-west Africa is suggested in some 

 cases (pp. 400-407). 



7. The author then contrasts the zones of vegetation on the great 

 cone of Pico as representing the Azores, on the Peak of Teneriffe 

 as representative of the Canaries, and on Madeira. After describing 

 those of Teneriffe, he discusses the differences that we ought to 

 expect in the cases of Madeira and the Azores from the differences 

 in latitude and the associated differences in climate. It is then 

 inferred that the extensive lower zone (the African zone) of Teneriffe 

 would be much restricted in Madeira, and absent altogether in the 

 Azores, whilst the Laurel woods, which have many features in common 

 in all three groups and lie from 2000 to 2500 feet above the sea 

 on Teneriffe, would descend to about 1000 feet above the sea in 

 Madeira, and, when permitted by the cultivator, would descend to 

 the coast in the Azores. All these predictions are then shown to 

 be substantially realised, but the reader is referred to the text for 

 the particulars (pp. 407-10). 



8. It is also brought out in this comparison that the Junipers 



