Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/158

84 there are nearly three times as many flowering plants as here.

"The number of species detected during Cook's stay in the island was eighteen, including Cryptogamia; these, with the exception of one Lichen, were refound during the visit of the antarctic expedition, when the flora was increased to about 150 in all; namely, eighteen of flowering plants, three ferns, twenty-five mosses, ten Jungermanniæ, one fungus, the rest lichens and seaweeds.

"Of the flowering plants, the two great Classes were in the proportion of 1 to 2, the lowest ratio which has yet been recorded; the nearest approach to it being seen in Melville Island, where Mr. Brown (in his remarks on the plants collected there by the officers of Captain Parry's first voyage) states the proportion to be as 2 to 5. The large proportion of monocotyledonous plants here arises, as in Melville Island, from the increased ratio which the grasses bear to the other phænogamic plants. In the latter island, according to Mr. Brown's list, it is as 1 to 3.7, or, as that botanist remarks, 'nearly double what has been found in any other part of the world.' In Kerguelen Island the disproportion is further increased, being as 1 to 2.6, a third greater than that of Melville Island, and the maximum hitherto observed, except in the South Shetlands, where a solitary grass composes all the flowering vegetation.

"Two phænogamic plants, out of the eighteen, belong to genera apparently peculiar to the island;