Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/335

] the Fuegian and British Floras becomes more evident on looking to the common genera of the former country: they are, Ranunculus, Caltha, Berberis, Cardamine, Draba, Arabis, Thlaspi, Silene, Lychnis, Stellaria, Cerastium, Oxalis, Viola, Geranium, Drosera, Rubus, Ribes, Potentilla (P. anserina grows in South Chili), Myriophyllum, Saxifraga, Chrysosplenium, Asperula, Galium, Valeriana, Senecio, Hieracium, Aster, Taraxacum, Gnaphalium, Arbutus, Gentiana, Myosotis, Pinguicula, Samolus, Scutellaria, Limosella, Stachys, Anagallis, Plantago, Chenopodium, Rumex, Polygonum, Empetrum, Fagus Urtica, Triglochin, Juncus and Luzula, Carex, Scirpus, Eleocharis, Isolepis, Schœnus, and nineteen genera of Grasses. Many of the genera in this long list are unknown in the tropics. Others exist there only in species bearing little analogy to their congeners of the colder or temperate latitudes. As they are recognised on the shores or mountains of Fuegia, they perpetually draw the traveller's mind to that interesting subject—the diffusion of species over the surface of our earth.

"As we descend in the scale of vegetable creation, the number of plants common to the opposite hemisphere is seen to augment: the increase bearing an inverse proportion to their development. Thus, there are two kinds of Ferns; as many Lycopodia; a Chara; forty-eight species of Mosses; twelve Hepaticæ, and a very large amount of Algæ; while almost every Fuegian Lichen is not only an acknowledged but a prevalent species in Britain.