Campbell's Island, two degrees to the southward of Lord Auckland's group, is smaller, far more steep and rocky, with narrow sheltered valleys, and the broader faces of the hills much exposed, and hence bare of any but a grassy vegetation. Except in the bays, the coast is as iron-bound as that of St. Helena, the rocks assuming even a wilder and more fantastic form. Ever lashed by heavy swells, and exposed to a succession of westerly gales, this land affords no holding-place for such trees as skirt the beaches of Lord Auckland's Islands. In the narrow, sinuous bays, however, the scene is quite changed, for they are often margined by a slender belt of brushwood, with an abundant undergrowth of Ferns, stretching up the steep and confined gulleys.
The geological features of the two islands are alike, and the only difference in climate consists in that of Campbell's Island being still more forbidding and dreary. Fogs, snow-squalls and mists are the prevailing meteorological phænomena of these regions, and though such a state of atmosphere has a tendency to check the general mass of vegetation, still the constant moisture and equable temperature thus afforded support a luxuriant herbage in the very sheltered valleys. In Campbell's Island, the mountains, which rise very abruptly to about 1300 feet, are almost bare of vegetation, their rocky sides presenting a larger proportion of Grasses, Mosses and Lichens than in Lord Auckland's group. Though all the handsomer plants are also found in the larger of the latter islands, yet, by growing here at a much lower elevation and in far greater abundance, they form a more striking feature in the landscape, the golden-flowered Liliaceous plant being conspicuous, from its profusion, at the distance of a mile from the shore.
I.RANUNCULACEÆ, Juss.
1. Ranunculus (Hecatonia) pinguis, Hook. fil.; acaulis, carnosus, pilosus, foliis omnibus radicalibus longe petiolatis reniformi-rotundatis crenato-lobatis, petiolis basi late vaginantibus, scapis crassis nudis v. 1–2-bracteatis folia æquantibus unifloris, sepalis 5–8 calyce brevioribus obovato-cuneatis v. linearibus, nectariis 3 quandoque nullis v. obsoletis, carpellis numerosissimis in capitulum globosum arcte congestis vix compressis utrinque subalatis dorsoque carinatis stylo valido recto bialato apice sæpe uncinato terminatis. (Tab. I.)
Var. β. pilosus; minor, petiolis foliis scapis calycibusque magis pilosis, petalis linearibus sepalis ⅓ brevioribus, nectariis 3 valde distinctis.
Var. γ. rhombifolius; minor, foliis subrotundo-rhombeis 3–5-fidis segmentis subacutis crenato-dentatis v. integris.
Hab. Lord Auckland's group.α and β in boggy places on the hills, alt. 1000 feet; and from the sea to the mountain tops, alt. 1200 feet, in Campbell's Island.γ. Rocky places in Lord Auckland's group, alt. 1200 feet, rare.
