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Chap. IV.]
BOTANICAL NOTICE.
85
1840
one of them, the curious Cabbage-plant (Pringlea antiscorbutica), and the other a Portulaceous plant. Of the remaining sixteen, four are probably new species of antarctic American genera; ten are species actually inhabiting the latter country; six of these, also inhabitants of Auckland and Campbell Islands, and two are common throughout the whole southern and northern temperate and cooler zones. Of the cryptogamic plants, most are abundant in the higher southern latitudes, though many are hitherto undescribed, and, perhaps, twenty peculiar to this island. Many are natives of the European Alps, and more particularly of the north polar regions.
"Though Kerguelen Island is remote and comparatively bare of vegetation, there are several peculiarly interesting points connected with its Botany. Though now destitute of even a shrub, the abundance of fossil remains proves that many parts were for successive ages clothed with trees. The proportion of the surface that is covered with plants is about equal to that in Spitzbergen and Melville Island, yet the relative number of species to individuals falls strikingly short; for whilst the Flora of Melville Island boasts of sixty-seven species of flowering plants, and Spitzbergen of forty-five, Kerguelen Island contains but eighteen, and of these only eight cover any considerable amount of surface. The climate of the island is such, that, though rigorous, it supports a perennial vegetation; and scarcely