Page:Miscellaneousbot01brow.djvu/85

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BOTANY OF TERRA AUSTRALIS.
67

though only one twenty-fifth[1] of the whole number observed, appears to be greater than that in the Flora of South Africa. And the vegetation of the Cape of Good Hope, not only in the number of species peculiar to it, but in its general character, as depending on the extensive genera or families of which it is composed, differs almost as widely from that of the northern parts of the same continent, and the south of Europe, as that of the corresponding latitude of Terra Australis does from the Flora of India and of Northern Asia.

Of the proportion of European species in the Flora of South America, which is probably still smaller than that of South Africa, we have very insufficient means of judging; we know, however, from the collections made by Sir Joseph Banks that, at the southern extremity of America, certain European plants, as Phleum alpinum, Alopecurus alpinus, and Botrychium Lunaria exist; and that there is even a considerable resemblance in the general character of the Flora of Terra del Fuego to that of the opposite extremity of America and of the North of Europe.


  1. In the original text the proportion is stated as "one-tenth;" but this obvious mistake was corrected as above, by Mr. Brown—himself in the Banksian copy of 'Flinders's Voyage.' Edit.