changes, hundreds or even thousands of Centuries may have witnessed
in that portion of the globe, leaving, perhaps, this unique
little floral remnant, now fast disappearing, as almost the only
record of what once was.
Dr. Hooker says that “ neither geological considerations, nor
botanical afBnity, nor natural selection, nor all these combined, have
yet helped us to a complete solution of this problem, which is at
present the bête-noire of botanists. Oceanic islands are, in fact, to
the naturalist what comets and meteorites are to the astronomer.
And even that pregnant doctrine of the origin and succession of
life, which we owe to Darwin, and which is to us what the spectrum
analysis is to the physicist, has not proved sufficient to unravel the
tangled phenomena.”
So far, therefore, the manner in which this once incandescent
mass first received its Flora, whether by the agency of birds or
atmospheric and oceanic currents, or direct from that Hand by which
all things were created, still remains unfathomed. Geology helps
us to penetrate a little further into the history of the Island,
beyond the infinitesimally small period of its existence since man
first visited it, and enables us slightly to trace some of those
physical changes with which its indigenous Flora and Fauna have
had to contend. I t teaches us that, long ages ago—so long that,
as Mr. Darwin remarks, the mind recoils from an attempt to grasp
the number of centuries—the dimensions of the Island were much
larger than they are now ; that it was much longer and broader, and
more lofty than it now appears, when, probably with snow-capped
mountain tops, and lower lying swampy lands, it possessed a very
different climate from what we find in the present day. What
effect these changes, together with long isolation, may have produced
upon species, or what variations* they may have brought about, it
is not easy to determine. But we may safely regard change of
climate, with alterations in the physical condition of the land, as
additional causes to the introduction of goats and exotics for
the gradual extinction of the indigenous Flora.-f- Dr. Hooker
* I t is a remarkable peculiarity that the indigenous flowers are, with very slight exceptions,
all perfectly colonrlers.
+ Another cause which assisted in the extermination of the Redwood and it bony appears
through the following extract from the MSS. Kecords, 1709 —“ Forasmuch as the Eedwood
and Ebbonvwood (whose Barks are fitt for Tanning Leather) are most of ’em destroyed by the
Tanners, that for lasieness never took the paines to barke the whole trees but only the bodys.
estimates that in three centuries and a half one hundred species
may thus have become extinct, and we are now witnessing the disappearance
of the remaining fragment. We have only to'see the old
weatherbeaten veteran Gumwoods on Longwood Plain, grown hoary
with long white lichen; the hard struggle of the Scrubwood,
Mellissia, Frankenia, and Plantago, for existence ; and to learn from
those who have tried to cultivate the native plants in the Island the
extreme difficulty in growing them,* to be convinced that they
were originally surrounded by some other climatic conditions than
now exist.
The green vegetation once seen clothing the Island to the water’s
edge, was doubtless, with some lost species, formed of Ebony,
Scrubwood, Frankenia, Mellissia, Plantago, Mesembryanthe-
mum, Pelargonium, Pharnaceum, and Tripteris, these being still
found to occur on the outer and lower zone of the Island near the
sea, with perhaps the addition of the Rosemary and Gumwood,
which occupy an intermediate zone between tbe outskirts and tbe
central highest parts of the Island, where all the rest of the remaining
indigenous plants are now found. This vegetation was probably
so thick as to prevent the existence of grass ; the absence of which
is remarkable in the native Flora, one species only occurring, and
that confined to the high land, while exotic grasses freely and fully
overrun the Island.
Viewing in the present day the dry, barren, soilless, frowning,
lichen-coated, rocky outskirts of the Island, it requires strong faith to
realize its ever having been green with vegetation, were it not that the
record of such a fact handed down to us is endorsed by the Ebony
trunks and stems .still existing where no vestige of life can now be
found; and also by the manuscripts preserved at the Castle,telling of
leaving the best of the bark on the branches, by which means has destroyed all those trees, at
least three for one, and therefore to prevent the like for ye future and to preserve and recover
so usefull and necessary a thing for the Island use. Ordered—That no more Hides be sold to
the People, for that We are about to engage one John Orchard, a Tanner, who has offered
himself to Tan and dress those Hides at 3s. 6d. apiece.” One condition of his agreement
being that he would get the bark off the common, the great advantage of which would be the
preservation of the trees.
* Notwithstanding the great difficulty in propagating these plants, Dr. Hooker has succeeded
in the introduction of thirteen of them, in addition to most of the St. Helena ferns,
into the conservatories of the Royal Gardens at Kew.
f “ Two soldiers being suddenly killed while on duty at the Crane Battery by falling
rocks, it was resolved to make a timber covering over the Battery, and for this work 240
pieces of Gummwood. timbef, of ten foot long and five inches broad, be cut in the next adjacent
q 2