478 
ISLAND LIFE. 
[part it. 
or Antarctic plants and many more winch are representative 
species, are found also in Tasmania and in the mountains of 
temperate Australia; and Sir Joseph Hooker gives a list of 
thirty-eight species very characteristic of Europe and Northern 
Asia, but almost or quite unknown in the warmer regions, which 
yet reappear in temperate Australia. Other genera seem 
altogether Antarctic — that is, confined to the extreme southern 
lands and islands ; and these often have representative species 
in Southern America, Tasmania, and New Zealand, -while others 
occur only in one or two of these areas. Many north temperate 
genera also occur in the mountains of South Africa. On the 
other hand, few if any of the peculiar Australian or Antarctic 
types have spread northwards, except some of the former which 
have reached the mountains of Borneo, and a few of the latter 
which spread along the Andes to Mexico. 
On these remarkable facts, of which I have given but the 
barest outline, Sir Joseph Hooker makes the following suggestive 
observations : — 
“ When I take a comprehensive view of the vegetation of the 
Old World, I am struck with the appearance it presents of there 
being a continuous current of vegetation (if I may so fancifully 
express myself) from Scandinavia to Tasmania ; along, in short, 
the whole extent of that arc of the terrestrial sphere which 
presents the greatest continuity of land. In the first place 
Scandinavian genera, and even species, reappear everywhere from 
Lapland and Iceland to the tops of the Tasmanian Alps, in 
rapidly diminishing numbers it is true, but in vigorous develop- 
ment throughout. They abound on the Alps and Pyrenees, pass 
on to the Caucasus and Himalaya, thence they extend along the 
Khasia Mountains, and those of the peninsulas of India to 
those of Ceylon and the Malayan Archipelago (Java and 
Borneo), and after a hiatus of 30° they appear on the Alps 
of New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania, and beyond 
these again on those of New Zealand and the Antarctic 
Islands, many of the species remaining unchanged through- 
out ! It matters not what the vegetation of the bases and 
flanks of these mountains may be ; the northern species may 
be associated with alpine forms of Germanic, Siberian, Oriental, 
