cclxii 
PREFATORY REMARKS. 
contained in the collections, or from the want of authentic specimens of other countries, 
Avith which it was necessary to compare them. I may notice, likeAvise, as a third cause 
of the delay, the greater extent of my original plan, Avhich included remarks on the 
state and relative proportions of the primary divisions and natural ox'ders contained in 
the list ; a comparison Avith the vegetation of regions of nearly similar climates ; and 
observations on the range of those species common to Melville Island and other parts 
of the Avorld. ToAvards the completion of this plan I had made considerable progress. 
But to have satisfactorily treated some of the subjects referred to Avould have required 
more time than I have had it in my power to devote to them, and in several cases better 
materials than I have hitherto been able to obtain. 
I have consequently found it necessary to relinquish, for the present, this part of my 
plan*, and to confine myself to a systematic list, adding only characters and descriptions 
* I shall here offer a single remark on the relative proportions of the two primary divisions of 
Phmnogamous Plants. 
In my earliest observations on this subject I had come to the conclusion that from 45® as far 
as 60° or perhaps 65° of North Latitude, the proportion of Dicotyledonous to iSIonocotyledonous 
plants gradually diminished. (^Flinders' voy. 2. p. 538.) But from a subsequent examination of 
the list of Greenland plants, given by Professor Giesecke, (Art. Greenland, in Brewster’s Edinburgh 
Encyclopedia) as well as from what I had been able to collect respecting the vegetation of alpine 
regions, I had supposed it not improbable that in still higher latitudes, and at corresponding 
heights above the level of the sea, the relative numbers of these two divisions were again inverted; 
{Tuckey’s Congo, p. 423.) in the list of Greenland plants referred to, Dicotyledones being to 
Monocotyledones as four to one, or in nearly the equinoctial ratio ; and in the vegetation of 
Spitzbergen, as Avell as it could be judged of from the materials hitherto collected, the proportion of 
Dicotyledones appearing to be still further increased. 
This inversion in the cases now mentioned was found to depend at least as much on the 
reduction of the proportion of Gramineas, as on the increase of certain Dicotyledonous families, 
especially Saxifrageso and Cruciferae. 
The Flora of Melville Island, however, which, as far as relates to the two primary divisions of 
Phsenogamous plants, is probably as much to be depended on as any local catalogue hitherto 
published, leads to very different conclusions; Dicotyledones being in the present list to ^lono- 
cotyledones as five to two, or in as low a ratio as has been any where yet observed ; while 
the proportion of Grasses, instead of being reduced, is nearly double Avhat has been found in any 
other part of the world; (see Humboldt, in Diet, des Sciences Nat., tom. 18, table at p. 416.) 
this family forming one-fifth of the whole Phaenogamous vegetation. 
