Dispersal of Herbaceous Angiosperms. 567 
Region. 
No. of Species. 
No. of Herbs. 
% Herbs 
Faroes (Warming et al.) 
164 
150 
9 1 
Spain (Ibiza) ........... 
4,481 
3,554 
79 
Crete (Raulin) 
L4 61 
1,161 
79 
76 
Sicily (Tornabene) 
1,697 
1,295 
Syria (Post) 
2,949 
2,477 
84 
Flora Orientalis (Boissier) 
9,77i 
8,1 10 
83 
Japan (Matsumura) 
3,257 
1,861 
57 
TROPICAL 
REGIONS. 
Brazil (Mueller) 
15,9s 1 
4,092 
26 
Ditto, Amazon Valley only 
2,209 
265 
12 
British West Indies (Grisebach) .... 
2,249 
675 
30 
Tropical Africa (Oliver and Thiselton-Dyer) 
8,577 
3,56o 
42 
British India (Hooker) 
“>,454 
4,344 
42 
Bombay (Cooke), Lowland only .... 
1,249 
1,084 
487 
39 
Upper Gangetic Plain (Duthie) ..... 
583 
54 
Ceylon (Trimen) 
L793 
670 
37 
Java (Koorders) 
3,188 
867 
27 
Dutch East Indies (Miquel) 
6,398 
L599 
25 
Malay Peninsula (King) 
3,25 2 
553 
*7 
Hongkong (Bentham) 
728 
293 
40 
Manila (Merrill) 
333 
1 06 
32 
Of course, in all these regions the Monocotyledons, comprising about 
30 per cent, of the angiospermous vegetation, are with comparatively few 
exceptions herbaceous. 
A perusal of the foregoing table shows very clearly that in the north 
temperate zone herbs are the dominant Dicotyledons, but that in the tropics 
the situation is exactly reversed and woody plants are the prevailing type 
of vegetation. 
This general fact is well shown also by a comparison of the percentage 
of herbs in various families in their temperate and in their tropical ranges. 
A few such comparisons are presented in the following table : 
Family. 
North Temperate Zone. 
0/ 
Brazil. 
Of 
India. 
C/ 
Tropical Africa. 
Amarantaceae . . 
/> 
. 100 
/o 
79 
% 
44 
% 
84 
Leguminosae . . 
90 
22 
38 
4i 
Euphorbiaceae . . 
95 
14 
10 
29 
Violaceae . . . 
. 100 
6 
52 
18 
Lythraceae . . . 
100 
30 
42 
76 
Convolvulaceae 
100 
42 
52 
65 
Verbenaceae . . 
. 100 
20 
4 
7 
Rubiaceae . . . 
. 100 
20 
30 
19 
Compositae . . . 
. 100 
39 
9 1 
80 
An overwhelming majority of arborescent Dicotyledons are confined 
to the tropics, where they constitute from 25 per cent, to 40 per cent, 
of the species instead of from 1 to 5 per cent., as in temperate regions. 
In view of the palaeobotanical evidence at hand with regard to climatic 
conditions at the time when the first Angiosperms appeared, these facts as 
to the present distribution of their woody members relative to climate are 
of some importance. 
The Angiosperms, according to most authorities, had their origin in the 
late Jurassic or the early Cretaceous. The Jurassic floras of such widely 
