COLONIAL FLORAS. 
507 
20 species in all common to these two volumes, and no remarkable 
genera. 
The Orders of any magnitude absent from both are Berbcrideso, 
Cistineae, Ternstroemiacese, and Dipterocarpese. 
The general result, then, of the above comparison is, that the 
Orders between Banunculacese and Leguminosse are all but the same 
in number in the Cape and Australia, and only differ in kind by 
about five Orders in each country ; that the genera are much fewer 
in the Cape, but a larger proportion of these is endemic ; whilst 
the species are not only more numerous at the Cape, but far more 
restricted to that area. 
"With regard to the representation of Northern forms in each 
Flora, ilustralia certainly is the richest, both as to the number 
of genera and species, and as to the character of them. With the 
exception of Thalictrum minus , there is no Cape plant of so boreal 
a character as Stellaria glctuca, Sagina procumbens , Monti a fontana , 
and several other plants found abundantly in the Australian and 
Tasmanian Alps, but absent in South Africa. This is a most sug¬ 
gestive fact, if considered in connection with that of there being an 
almost continuous continental extension between South Africa and 
Northern Europe, whilst Australia is an isolated continent. 
The data supplied by these two volumes, however, justify nothing 
beyond a comparison of the prevalent conditions of those parts of 
the Floras which they respectively most fully and faithfully describe ; 
and we shall wait their continuation with impatience, feeling sure 
that many more curious and instructive points will be brought out 
in them, and ample scope afforded for working the question of the 
origin of that host of endemic forms they each contain, by variation 
from a few pre-existing types, characteristic of countries from which 
their whole Floras may wholly or in part have been derived. So far 
as at present appears, the Australian Flora is the most complicated, 
though least rich of the two, consisting of Indian, European, and 
Antarctic types, vastly outnumbered by Australian endemic forms, 
that may or may not have arisen by variation and natural selection 
from the Indian and Antarctic. The Cape Flora consists of Indian 
types common to tropical Africa, and of a few European ones, both 
outnumbered by endemic Cape forms, which are more obviously 
derivable by variation and selection from the European and Indian 
Floras than the Australian endemic ones are from the Indian and 
Antarctic. 
