50 
WILLIS AND GARDINER : BOTANY 
Possibilities of the Flora, 
A considerable interest attaches to the possibilities of the 
Maidive flora. As has often been pointed out, e.g., by 
Trimen,* the floras of Ceylon and India contain a small 
African-Mascarene element, and those of the African Islands 
a larger Asiatic element. The origin of these is one of the 
great problems in connection with the flora of these countries. 
Remembering that the Maldives form a fairly continu- 
ous group of islands 400 miles long and lying between 
India and Ceylon and the African islands mentioned, it is 
conceivable that they might have formed a hajf-way station 
in the great gap. We might further expect to find on them 
some intermediate forms of life between those found in 
India and Africa, or a more pronounced African type of 
flora. It is highly improbable, now that we know the 
islands to be mere coral islets, that any intermediate forms 
should occur on them, unless the subsidence theory of coral 
reefs, enunciated by Darwin, be the true one, and eveii then 
we must suppose two difficult circumstances to occur in 
combination, viz., that the subsidence of the land should 
have been so slow, that there would always have been fresh 
land piled up by the waves ready to receive* the old flora, 
and that the intermediate forms mentioned or forms com- 
mon to both regions should be capable of growing upon the 
coral reefs. If we suppose such forms to have continued 
upon the reefs, we must postulate for them an unbroken 
existence, since the breaking down of the land connection 
between Ceylon and Madagascar, ^.e., probably since early 
Tertiary or Upper-Cretaceous times at least.f 
The flora of the Maldives, however, proves to contain no 
peculiar forms, and to be chiefly the familiar Indo-Malayan 
Coast Flora, such as has been described by Schimper. It 
contains some interesting plants, e.g,, Cladium jamaicense, 
not known in India and Ceylon except in Kashmir, but 
* Remarks on the Composition, Geographical Affinities, and Origin of 
the Ceylon Flora : Journ. R. As. Soc., Ceylon Branch, 1885. 
t Blanford : Anniversary A.ddress. Proc. Geol. Soc., London, 1890, p. 68. 
