is said to be found nowhere else in the world but on this
solitary mountain summit. It has a tall, stout stem, sometimes
more than three feet high, the root leaves are eighteen
inches long, and it bears several whorls of cowslip-like
flowers, instead of a terminal cluster only. The forest trees,
gnarled and dwarfed to the dimensions of bushes, reach
up to the very rim of the old crater, but do not extend
over the hollow on its summit. Here we find a good
deal of open ground, with thickets of shrubby Artemi s i a s
and Gnaphaliums, like our southernwood and cudweed, but
six or eight feet high; while Buttercups, Violets, Whortleberries,
Sow-thistles, Chickweed, white and yellow Cru-
ciferse, Plantain, and annual grasses everywhere abound.
Where there are bushes and shrubs, the St. John’s-wort
and Honeysuckle grow abundantly, while the Imperial
Cowslip only exhibits its elegant blossoms under the
damp shade of the thickets.
Mr. Motley, who visited the mountain in the dry season,
and paid much attention to botany, gives the following
list of genera of European plants found on or near the
summit:—Two species of Violet, three of Ranunculus,
three of Impatiens, eight or ten of Rubus, and species
of Primula, Hypericum, Swertia, Convallaria (Lily of the
Valley), Vaccinium (Cranberry), Rhododendron, Gnapha-
lium, Polygonum, Digitalis (Foxglove), Lonicera (Honeysuckle),
Plantago (Rib-grass), Artemisia (Wormwood),
Lobelia, Oxalis (Wood-sorrel), Quercus (Oak), and Taxus
(Yew). A few of the smaller plants (Plantago major and
lanceolata, Sonchus oleraceus, and Artemisia vulgaris) are
identical with European species.
The fact of a vegetation so closely allied to that of
Europe occurring on isolated mountain peaks, in an island
south of the Equator, while all the lowlands for thousands
of miles around are occupied by a flora of a totally
different character, is very extraordinary; and has only
recently received an intelligible explanation. The Peak
of Teneriffe, which rises to a greater height and is much
nearer to Europe, contains no such Alpine flora; neither
do the mountains of Bourbon and Mauritius. The case
of the volcanic peaks of Java is* therefore somewhat
exceptional, but there are several analogous, if not exactly
parallel cases, that will enable us better to understand
in what way the phenomena may possibly have been
brought about. The higher peaks of the Alps, and even
of the Pyrenees, contain a number of plants absolutely
identical with those of Lapland, but nowhere found in
the intervening plains. On the summit of the White
Mountains, in the United States, every plant is identical
with species growing in Labrador. In these cases all
ordinary means of transport fail. Most of the plants
have heavy seeds, which could not possibly be carried
such immense distances by the wind; and the agency of