tlie others scarce any indication of an American parentage, except a
plant referred to Physalis. The Perns tell the same tale ; of twenty-
six species, ten are absolutely peculiar, all the rest are African,
though some are also Indian and American.
“ The Botany of St;. Helena is thus most interesting; it resembles
none other in the peculiarity of its indigenous vegetation,
in the great rarity of the plants of other countries, or in the number
of species that have actually disappeared within the memory of
living men. In 1839 and 1843, I in vain searched for forest trees
and shrubs, that flourished in tens of thousands not a century before
my visit, and still existed as individuals twenty years before that
date. Of these I saw, in some cases, no vestige, in others only
blasted and lifeless trunks cresting the cliffs in inaccessible places.
Probably 100 St. Helena plants have thus disappeared from the
Systema Naturae since the first introduction of goats on the Island.
Every one of these was a link in the chain of created beings, which
contained within itself evidence of the affinities of other species,
both living and extinct, but which evidence is now irrecoverably
lost. I f such be the fate of organisms that lived in our day, what
folly it is to found theories on the assumed perfection of a geological
record which has witnessed revolutions in the vegetation of the
globe, to which that of the Flora of St. Helena is as nothing.”
By a recent examination of the mosses, the lichens, the fungi,
and the sea weeds, the number of plants absolutely peculiar to
St. Helena, has been increased to seventy-seven.
Mr. Mitten has added thirty-two new species from the mosses.
Mr. Leighton has also augmented the list by three from amongst
the lichens collected in the Island by Dr. Burchell, others, and myself.
In an account of these collections, published in the “ Transactions
of the Linnean Society of London,” vol. xxvii., he says—
“ Though not numerous, they are highly interesting and instructive,
as well from their insular locality itself, as more especially from their
approximate similarity to the ‘ lichenes Amazonici et Andini ’ of
Mr. Bichard Spruce.”* The three species which he describes as new
may be considered as absolutely peculiar to St. Helena, leaving it as
uncertain how the remainder found their way into-the Island.
Mr. Berkeley has supplied a drawing and descriptions of two
* Linn, Trans., vol. xxv. p. 433 et «ej.
new species from my collection of Fungi, but the examination of the
sea-weeds does not reveal any that are absolutely confined to St. Helena.
We know that plants are carried from place to place on the
globe through the agency of birds eating the seeds, or conveying
them in their beaks, or on their feet or feathers. Mr. Darwin gives
many proofs of this. Also that the atmosphere wafts minute
winged or feathery seeds over many miles of distance. And we see
the oeeanic currents daily taking their part in the transportation of
seeds from place to place ; at this little Island itself, the large Entada
and other seeds,borne on the surface of the sea, over thousands of miles,
round the Cape of Good Hope, unharmed by exposure to the marine
element, are still deposited on its southern shore, where they have
been known to germinate and grow.
But if we attempt to account for the indigenous Flora of St.
Helena by any one or all of these means, we must look elsewhere
for corresponding species; and these we do not find. Dr. Hooker
has been able sufficiently to establish the fact, that, in its affinities,
the Flora partakes slightly of a Southern extra-tropical African
character; still we do not find the same plants occurring in Africa.
The exploration of the vicinity of the Congo shows that there nothing
is identical ;* while, on the other hand, we do not find what
we seek for in South America.
Other theories may be appealed to in order to account for the
presence and position of this wonderfully curious little Flora. Continental
land at one time spreading over the South Atlantic Ocean, with
its own peculiar Flora and Fauna, has been started as a plausible
theory; but the geological investigation of St. Helena forbids us to
look upon it as a remaining portion of some disappearing continent
to which the last vestige of a Flora, still struggling for existence,
maybe clinging; and the great depth of oceanf around it also seems
to deny the possibility of its connexion at any time with either
African or American land. Still we cannot tell what geological
* “ It might perhaps have been expected that the examination of the vicinity of the Congo
would have thrown some light on the origin, if I may so express myself, of the Flora of
St. Helena. This however has not proved to be the case; for neither has a single indigenous
species, nor have any of the principal genera characterizing the vegetation of that Island, been
found either on the hanks of the Congo or on any other part of this coast of. Africa.”—
H. Brown, Appendix to Gapt. Tuctcey's Narrative of the Congo Expedition, 1818, p. 476.
f St. Helena is said to be separated from the Continents of Africa and America by a
depth nowhere less than 12,000 feet.