PART IV. — BOTANY. 
A most interesting subject for investigation is afforded by the Botany 
of the Island. The plants growing there at the present time number 
about 1 048 ; for the presence of the larger portion of these, it is not 
difficult to account, they having followed through a period of three 
hundred and seventy -two years in the track of man and civili- 
zation ; but a most interesting question as to their origin is dictated 
by the remaining 77 species, which form a remnant of that Flora 
characteristic of the little lonely oceanic spot previous to man’s first 
visit there. 
This most wonderfully curious little Flora, which has been aptly 
termed “ a fragment from the wreck of an ancient world,” was 
made a prominent subject in a very able and highly interesting lec- 
ture upon Insular Floras, delivered before the British Association for 
the Advancement of Science at Nottingham in 1866. In that lecture 
Dr. Hooker, in reference to St. Helena, with its indigenous Flora, 
says: “When discovered, about 860 years ago, it was entirely 
covered with forests, the trees drooping over the tremendous preci- 
pices that overhang the sea. Now all is changed, fully 5-6ths of 
the Island are utterly barren, and by far the greater part of the vege- 
tation that exists, whether herbs, shrubs, or trees, consists of intro- 
duced European, American, African, and Australian plants. The 
indigenous Flora is almost confined to a few patches towards the 
summit of Diana’s Peak, the central ridge, 2700 feet above the sea. 
“ The destruction of the Madeira forests, you will remember, was 
by fire. A much more insidious agency has operated with tenfold 
greater effect in St. Helena-viz., goats. _ These were introduced in 
1513, and multiplied so rapidly, that in 1588 Captain Cavendish 
states that they existed in thousands, single flocks being almost a 
mile long. 
“ In 1709, trees still abounded, and one, the native Ebony, m such 
quantities, that it was used to burn lime with. At this time, how- 
ever, the Governor of the Island reported to tlie Court of Directors 
