224 
ST. SELENA. 
the others scarce any indication of an American parentage, except a 
plant referred to Physalis. The Perns tell the same tale ; of twenty- 
six species, ten are absolutely peculiar, all the rest are African, 
though some are also Indian and American. 
“The Botany of St. Helena is thus most interesting; it re- 
sembles none other in the peculiarity of its indigenous vegetation, 
in the great rarity of the plants of other countries, or in the number 
of species that have actually disappeared within the memory of 
living men. In 1839 and 1843, I in vain searched for forest trees 
and shrubs, that flourished in tens of thousands not a century before 
my visit, and still existed as individuals twenty years before that 
date. Of these I saw, in some cases, no vestige, in others only 
blasted and lifeless trunks cresting the cliffs in inaccessible places. 
Probably 100 St. Helena plants have thus disappeared from the 
Systema Naturae since the first introduction of goats on the Island. 
Every one of these was a link in the chain of created beings, which 
contained within itself evidence of the affinities of other species, 
both living and extinct, but which evidence is now irrecoverably 
lost. If such be the fate of organisms that lived in our day, what 
folly it is to found theories on the assumed perfection of a geological 
record which has witnessed revolutions in the vegetation of the 
globe, to which that of the Flora of St. Helena is as nothing.” 
By a recent examination of the mosses, the lichens, the fungi, 
and the sea weeds, the number of plants absolutely peculiar to 
St. Helena, has been increased to seventy-seven. 
Mr. Mitten has added thirty -two new species from the mosses. 
Mr. Leighton has also augmented the list by three from amongst 
the lichens collected in the Island by Dr. Burchell, others, and my- 
self. In an account of these collections, published in the “ Transac- 
tions of the Linnean Society of London,” vol. xxvii., he says — 
“ Though not numerous, they are highly interesting and instructive, 
as well from their insular locality itself, as more especially from their 
approximate similarity to the ‘ Liclienes Amazonici et Andini ’ of 
Mr. Bichard Spruce.”* The three species wliich he describes as new 
may be considered as absolutely peculiar to St. Helena, leaving it as 
uncertain how the remainder found their way into the Island. 
Mr. Berkeley has supplied a drawing and descriptions of two 
* Linn. Trans., vol. xxv . p. 433 et seq. 
