4i 8 
GALAPAGOS ARCHIPELAGO 
CHAP. 
an account of the insects of this archipelago, and to whom I am 
indebted for the above details, informs me that there are several 
new genera ; and that of the genera not new, one or two are 
American, and the rest of mundane distribution. With the 
exception of a wood-feeding Apate, and of one or probably two 
water-beetles from the American continent, all the species appear 
to be new. 
The botany of this group is fully as interesting as the zoology. 
Dr. J. Hooker will soon publish in the Linnean Transactions 
a full acount of the Flora ; and I am much indebted to him for 
the following details. Of flowering plants there are, as far as 
at present is known, 185 species, and 40 cryptogamic species, 
making together 225 ; of this number I was fortunate enough 
to bring home 193. Of the flowering plants, 100 are new 
species, and are probably confined to this archipelago. Dr. 
Hooker conceives that, of the plants not so confined, at least 10 
species found near the cultivated ground at Charles Island have 
been imported. It is, I think, surprising that more American 
species have not been introduced naturally, considering that the 
distance is only between 500 and 600 miles from the continent; 
and that (according so Collnett, p. 5 8) drift-wood, bamboos, 
canes, and the nuts of a palm, are often washed on the south¬ 
eastern shores. The proportion of 100 flowering plants out of 
185 (or 175 excluding the imported weeds) being new, is 
sufficient, I conceive, to make the Galapagos Archipelago a 
distinct botanical province; but this Flora is not nearly so 
peculiar as that of St. Helena, nor, as I am informed by Dr. 
Hooker, of Juan Fernandez. The peculiarity of the Galapageian 
Flora is best shown in certain families ;—thus there are 21 
species of Composite, of which 20 are peculiar to this 
archipelago ; these belong to twelve genera, and of these genera 
no less than ten are confined to the archipelago! Dr. Hooker 
informs me that the Flora has an undoubted Western American 
character ; nor can he detect in it any affinity with that of the 
Pacific. If, therefore, we except the eighteen marine, the one 
fresh-water, and one land-shell, which have apparently come 
here as colonists from the central islands of the Pacific, and 
likewise the one distinct Pacific species of the Galapageian group 
of finches, we see that this archipelago, though standing in the 
Pacific Ocean, is zoologically part of America. 
