Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/131

 *[Footnote: and of Fuegia is much more meagre not only than that of similarly clothed regions of Europe, but of islands many degrees nearer to the Northern pole than these are to the Southern one. Iceland, for instance, which is from 8 to 10 degrees farther from the equator than the Auckland and the Campbell Islands, contains certainly five times as many flowering plants. In the Antarctic Flora, under the influence of a cool and moist, but singularly equable climate, great uniformity, arising from paucity of species, is associated with great luxuriance of vegetation. This striking uniformity prevails both at different levels, (the species found on the plains appearing also on the slopes of the mountains), and over vast extents of country, from the south of Chili to Patagonia, and even to Tierra del Fuego, or from lat. 45° to 56°. Compare, on the other hand, in the northern temperate region, the Flora of the South of France, in the latitude of the Chonos Archipelago on the coast of Chili, with the Flora of Argyleshire in Scotland in the latitude of Cape Horn, and how great a difference of species is found; while in the Southern Hemisphere the same types of vegetation pass through many degrees of latitude. Lastly, on Walden Island, in lat. 80-1/2° N., or not ten degrees from the North Pole of the earth, ten species of flowering plants have been collected, while in the southernmost islet of the South Shetlands, though only in lat. 63° S., only a solitary grass was found." These considerations on the distribution of plants confirm the belief that the great mass of still unobserved, uncollected, and undescribed flowering plants must be sought for in tropical]*