Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/602

588 houseæ, both of them very small tribes, which many botanists may be disposed to consider rather as genera than separate families.

A great part of the genera of Terra Australis are peculiar to it, and also a considerable number of the species of such of its genera as are found in other countries.

Of the species at present composing its Flora scarcely more than 400, or one-tenth of the whole number, have been observed in other parts of the world. More than half of these are phænogamous plants, of which the greater part are natives of India, and the islands of the southern Pacific; several, however, are European plants, and a few belong even to æquinoctial America. Of the Cryptogamous plants the far greater part are natives of Europe.

In comparing very generally the Flora of the principal parallel of Terra Australis with that of South Africa, we find several natural families characteristic of the Australian vegetation, as Proteaceæ, Diosmeæ, Restiaceæ, Polygaleæ, and also Buttneriaceæ, if Hermannia and Mahernia be considered as part of this order, existing, and in nearly equal abundance, at the Cape of Good Hope; others are replaced by analogous families, as Epacrideæ by Ericeæ; and some tribes which form a considerable part of the Australian peculiarities, as Dilleniaceæ, the leafless Acaciæ and Eucalyptus, are entirely wanting in South Africa.

On the other hand, several of the characteristic South African orders and extensive genera are nearly or entirely wanting in New Holland: thus Irideæ, Mesembryanthemum, Pelargonium, and Oxalis, so abundant at the Cape of Good Hope, occur very sparingly in New Holland, where the South African genera Aloe, Stapelia, Cliffortia, Penæa, and Brunia, do not at all exist. Very few species are common to both countries, and of these the only one which is at the same time peculiar to the Southern hemisphere is Osmunda barbara.

We have not sufficient materials for a satisfactory comparison of the Flora of the higher latitudes of South America with that of the Southern parts of Terra Australis. If, however, we may judge from those at present in our possession, it would seem that the general character of the South American vegetation differs much more from the Australian than this does from that of South Africa. Yet several instances occur of the