Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/244

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160
CAMPBELL ISLANDS.
[Chap. VI.
1840

the small ratio of 1:14, which they do in Lord Auckland's group, here appear as 1:4.5. Cyperaceæ and Orchideæ have proportionally decreased, and the Compositæ which were to all Dicotyledones as 1:10.4, are here as 1:5.6. These are not the signs of the vegetation of a more rigorous latitude alone, but of one differing more widely from that of New Zealand than Lord Auckland's group did, where only one-seventh of the plants were common to other antarctic regions, whilst in Campbell's Island fully one-fourth are natives of other longitudes in the Southern Ocean.

"Considering the aggregate of the plants in the islands to the southward of New Zealand as composing one Flora, a comparison of it with those of other countries is not out of place here. The flowering plants amount to one hundred species, or about the same number as have been collected in the whole group of arctic islands to the northward of the American coast. Of these one-fourth have been found in New Zealand, whilst many of the others belong to genera whose abundance is characteristic of that country. Only one-thirteenth of the whole are known to be Tasmanian, and one-sixth are common to Tierra del Fuego. Since there is no other country with which these islands possess any marked botanical features in common, their Flora may be considered a continuation of that of New Zealand, differing only in that it is more typical of the antarctic regions.

"The remarkable points of resemblance to