BOTANY OF KERGUELEN ISLAND— DR. HOOKER. 
island, from sea to sea, are bounded by hills 1,200 feet high, and are perennially 
swept by terrific blasts from the westward. There arc, hence, no shelter on land for 
the terrestrial flora, and no quiet bays for the proper development of a varied marine 
vegetation ; facts which may very well account for the paucity of Cryptogams in 
Christmas Harbour, but not for the presence there of nearly all the flowering plants 
of the island. Turning again to the south-eastern area, its more sheltered valleys 
and land-locked harbours favour not only a greater development of Cryptogams, 
but also a far greater luxuriance of the Phycnogams than obtains in Christmas 
Harbour ; which last fact renders the absence of additional species of Phsenogams to 
the south-eastward all the more remarkable. 
The question remains, granting that the great majority of the Phsenogams of 
Kerguelen Island are derived from South America, how was their transport effected ? 
Though this question cannot be satisfactorily answered by a reference to the facilities 
for distant transport possessed by the fruiting organs of the Kerguelen Island plants, 
it is only proper to refer to these organs in some detail. Obviously, regarding the 
whole flora, the plants with the most minute seeds or spores and the water-plants 
are the most widely distributed. Under these categories come — 1. The P’ungi, of 
which all but 2 of the 8 species found arc widely disjiersed over the globe. 
2. The marine Algte, of which only 8 out of the 71 arc peculiar to the island. 3. The 
fresh water Algae, of which 28 out of 80 are regarded as endemic. 4. The aquatic 
and marsh Phaenogams, 8 in all, of which C are widely dispersed. 
Of the Phaenogams, whether aquatic, marsh, or terrestial, none have appliances 
for wide dispersion except the hooked style of the Itaiiuncuhis, the reversed barbs of 
the Accena (a most powerful aid), and the hooked organ attached to the fruit of 
Uncinia, also a very adequate aid. None of the others have any aid to dispersion, 
though they have small seeds or fruits. 
Turning to the natural agents of dispersion, winds arc no doubt the most powerful, 
and sufficient to account for the transport of the Cryptogamic spores ; these, almost 
throughout the year, blow from Puegia to Kerguelen Island, and in the oj)posite 
direction only for very short periods, but appear quite insufficient to transport seeds 
over 4,000 miles. Oceanic currents have, doubtless, brought the marine Algae ; but 
the transport of the seeds of the freshwater plants, of the grasses, and of the two 
plants with hooked and barbed appendages to the fruit, is not apparent in the case 
of a country that has no laud birds but an endemic one (the Chionis), and of which 
the water birds come to land only or chiefly at the breeding season, and this after long 
periods of oceanic life in a most tempestuous ocean. Even supposing that the sea 
birds Ahich habitually breed in Kerguelen Island did visit Euegia between the periods 
of incubation, it is difficult to imagine that any seeds that had adhered to their 
beaks, feet, or bodies on leaving the latter country would not have been removed by 
the buifets of winds and waves over upwards of 4,000 miles of ocean. 
The supposition that more land formerly existed along the parallels between 
