African Flora—Flora of Australia, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and of
Polynesia.
THE northern coast of Africa, and the range of the Atlas generally, may
be regarded as a zone of transition, where the plants of southern Europe
are mingled with those peculiar to the country; half the plants of
northern Africa are also found in the other countries on the shores of
the Mediterranean. Of 60 trees and 248 shrubs which grow there, 100 only
are peculiar to Africa, and about 18 of these belong to its tropical
flora. There are about six times as many herbaceous plants as there are
trees and shrubs; and in the Atlas mountains, as in other chains, the
perennial plants are much more numerous than annuals. Evergreens
predominate, and are the same as those on the other shores of the
Mediterranean. The pomegranite, the locust-tree, the oleander, and the
palmetto abound; and the cistus tribe give a distinct character to the
flora. The sandarach, or Thuia articulata, peculiar to the northern side
of the Atlas mountains and to Cyrenaica, yields close-grained hard
timber, used for the ceiling of mosques, and is supposed to be the
shittim-wood of Scripture. The Atlas produces seven or eight species of
oak, various pines, especially the Pinus maritima, and forests of the
Aleppo pine in Algiers. The sweet-scented arborescent heath and Erica
scoparia are native here, also in the Canary Islands and the Azores,
where the tribe of house-leeks characterizes the botany. There are 534
phanerogamous plants, or such as have the parts of fructification
evident, in the Canary Islands; of these, 310 are indigenous, the rest
African: the Pinus canariensis is peculiar, and also the Dracænæ, which
grow in perfection here. The stem of the Dracæna Draco, of the Villa
Oratava in Teneriffe, measures 46 feet in circumference at the base of
the tree, which is 75 feet high. It is known to have been an object of
great antiquity in the year 1402, and is still alive, bearing blossoms
and fruit. If it be not an instance of the partial location of plants,
there must have been intercourse between India and the Canary Islands in
very ancient times.
Plants with bluish-green succulent leaves are characteristic of tropical
Africa and its islands; and though the group of the Canaries has plants
in common with Spain, Portugal, Africa, and the Azores, yet there are
many species, and even genera, which are found in them only; and the
height of the mountains causes much variety in the vegetation.
On the continent, south of the Atlas, a great change of soil and climate
takes place; the drought on the borders of the desert is so excessive
that no trees can resist it, rain hardly ever falls, and the scorching
blasts from the south speedily dry up any moisture that may exist; yet,
in consequence of what descends from the mountains, the date-palm forms
large forests along their base, which supply the inhabitants with food,
and give shelter to crops which could not otherwise grow. The date-palm,
each tree of which yields from 150 to 160 pounds weight of fruit, grows
naturally, and is also cultivated, through northern Africa. It has been
carried to the Canary Islands, Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and to Nice,
the most northern limit of the palm-tribe. Stunted plants are the only
produce of the desert, yet large tracts are covered with the Pennisetum
dichotomum, a harsh prickly grass, which, together with the Alhagi
maurorum, is the food of camels.
The plants peculiar to Egypt are acacias, mimosas, cassias, tamarisks,
the Nymphæa Lotus, the blue Lotus, the Papyrus, from which probably the
first substance used for writing upon was made, and has left its name to
that we now use; also the Zizyphus or jujub, various mesembryanthemums,
and most of the plants of Barbary grow here. The date-palm is not found
higher on the Nile than Thebes, where it gives place to the doom-palm or
Cucifera Thebaica, peculiar to this district, and singular as being the
only palm that has a branched stem.
The eastern side of equatorial Africa is less known than the western,
but the floras of the two countries, under the same latitude, have
little affinity: on the eastern side the Rubiaceæ, the Euphorbiæ, a race
peculiarly African, and the Malvaceæ, are most frequent. The genus
Danais of the coffee tribe distinguishes the vegetation of Abyssinia,
also the Dombeya, a species of vine, various jessamines, a beautiful
species of honeysuckle; and Bruce says a caper-tree grows to the height
of the elm, with white blossoms, and fruit as large as a peach. The
daroo, or Ficus sycomorus, and the arak-tree, are native. The kollquall,
or Euphorbia antiquorum, grows 40 feet high on the plain of Baharnagach,
in the form of an elegant branched candelabrum, covered with scented
fruit. The kantuffa or thornby shrub, is so great a nuisance from its
spines, that even animals avoid it. The Erythrina Abyssinica bears a
poisonous red bean with a black spot, used by the shangalla and other
tribes for ages as a weight for gold, and by the women as necklaces. Mr.
Rochet has lately brought some seeds of new grain from Shoa, that are
likely to be a valuable addition to European cerealia.
The vegetation of tropical Africa on the west is known only along the
coast, where some affinity with that of India may be observed. It
consists of 573 species of flower-bearing plants, and is distinguished
by a remarkable uniformity, not only in orders and genera, but even in
species, from the 16th degree of N. lat. to the river Congo in 6° S.
lat. The most prevalent are the grasses and bean tribes, the Cyperaceæ
Rubiaceæ, and the Compositæ. The Adansonia, or baobab of Senegal, is one
of the most extraordinary vegetable productions; the stem is sometimes
34 feet in diameter, though the tree is rarely more than 50 or 60 feet
high; it covers the sandy plains so entirely with its umbrella-shaped
top, that a forest of these trees presents a compact surface, which at
some distance seems to be a green field. Cape Verde has its name from
the numbers that conceal the barren soil under their spreading tops;
some of them are very old, and, with the dragon-tree at Teneriffe, are
supposed to be the most ancient vegetable inhabitants of the earth. The
Pandanus candelabrum, instead of growing crowded together in masses like
the baobab, stands solitary on the equatorial plains, with its lofty
forked branches ending in tufts of long stiff leaves. Numerous sedges,
of which the Papyrus is the most remarkable, give a character to this
region, and cover boundless plains, waving in the wind like corn-fields,
while other places are overgrown by forests of gigantic grasses with
branching stems.
A rich vegetation, consisting of impenetrable thickets of mangrove, the
poisonous manchineel, and many large trees, cover the deltas of the
rivers, and even grow so far into the water, that their trunks are
coated with shell-fish; but the pestilential exhalations render it
almost certain death to botanize in this luxuriance of nature.
Various kinds of the soap or sapodilla trees are peculiar to Africa; the
butter-tree of the enterprising but unfortunate Mungo Park, the
star-apple, the cream-fruit, the custard-apple, and the water-vine, are
plentiful in Senegal and Sierra Leone. The ibraculea is peculiarly
African; its seeds are used to sweeten brackish water. The safu and
bread-fruit of Polynesia are represented here by the musanga, a large
tree of the nettle tribe, the fruit of which has the flavour of the
hazel-nut. A few palms have very local habitations, as the Elais
Guineensis, or palm-oil plant, found only on that coast. That graceful
tribe is less varied in species in equatorial Africa than in the other
continents. It appears that a great part of the flora of this portion of
Africa is of foreign origin.
The flora of south Africa differs entirely from that of the northern and
tropical zones, and as widely from that of every other country, with the
exception of Australia and some parts of Chile. The soil of the
table-land at the Cape of Good Hope, stretching to an unknown distance,
and of the Karoo plains and valleys between the mountains, is sometimes
gravelly, but more frequently is composed of sand and clay; in summer it
is dry and parched, and most of its rivers are dried up; it bears but a
few stunted shrubs, some succulent plants and mimosas, along the margin
of the river-courses. The sudden effect of rain on the parched ground is
like magic: it is recalled to life, and in a short time is decked with a
beautiful and peculiar vegetation, comprehending, more than any other
country, numerous and distinctly-defined foci of genera and species.
Twelve thousand species of plants have been collected in the colony of
the Cape in an extent of country about equal to Germany. Of these,
heaths and proteas are two very conspicuous tribes; there are 300
species of the former, and 200 of the latter, both of which have nearly
the same limited range, though Mr. Bunbury found two heaths, and the
Protea cynaroides, the most splendid of the family (bearing a flower the
size of a man’s hat), on the hills round Graham’s Town, in the eastern
part of the colony. These two tribes of plants are so limited that there
is not one of either to be seen north of the mountains which bound the
Great Karoo, and by much the greatest number of them grew within 100
miles of Cape Town; indeed at the distance of only 40 miles the
prevailing Proteaceæ are different from those at the Cape. The
Leucadendron argenteum, or silver-tree, which forms groves at the back
of the table-mountain, is confined to the peninsula of the Cape. The
beautiful Disa grandiflora is found only in one particular place on the
top of the table-mountain.
The dry sand of the west coast, and the country northward through many
degrees of latitude, is the native habitation of Stapelias, succulent
plants with square leafless stems, and flowers like star-fish, with the
smell of carrion. A great portion of the eastern frontier of the Cape
colony and the adjacent districts is covered with extensive thickets of
a strong succulent and thorny vegetation, called by the natives the
bush: similar thickets occur again far to the west, on the banks of the
river Gauritz. The most common plants of the bush are aloes of many
species, all exceedingly fleshy and some beautiful: the great
red-flowering arborescent aloe, and some others, make a conspicuous
figure in the eastern part of the colony. Other characteristic plants of
the eastern districts are the spek-boem, or Portulacaria afra, Schotia
speciosa, and the great succulent euphorbias, which grow into real trees
40 feet high, branching like a candelabrum, entirely leafless, prickly,
and with a very acrid juice. The Euphorbia meloformis, three feet in
diameter, lies on the ground, to which it is attached by slender fibrous
roots, and is confined to the mountains of Graaf Reynet. Euphorbias, in
the Old World, correspond with the Cactus tribe, which belong
exclusively to the New. The Zamia, a singular plant, having the
appearance of a dwarf-palm, without any real similarity of structure,
belongs to the eastern districts, especially to the great tract of bush
on the Caffir frontier.
Various species of Acacia are indigenous and much circumscribed in their
location: the Acacia horrida, or the white-thorned acacia, is very
common in the eastern districts and in Caffirland. The Acacia cafra is
strictly eastern, growing along the margins of rivers, to which it is a
great ornament. The Acacia detinens, or hook-thorn, is almost peculiar
to Zand valley.
It appears, from the instances mentioned, that the vegetation in the
eastern districts of the colony differs from that on the western, yet
many plants are generally diffused of orders and genera found only in
this part of Africa:—Nearly all the 300 species of the fleshy succulent
tribe of Mesembryanthemum, or Hottentot’s fig; a great many beautiful
species of the Oxalis, or wood-sorrel-tribe; every species of Gladiolus,
with the exception of that in the cornfields in Italy and France; ixias
innumerable, one with petals of apple-green colour; geraniums,
especially the genus Pelargonium, or stork’s bill, almost peculiar to
this locality; many varieties of Gnaphalium and Xeranthemum; the
brilliant Strelitzia; 133 species of the house-leek tribe, all fleshy,
attached to the soil by a strong wiry root, and nourished more or less
from the atmosphere: Diosmas are widely scattered in great variety;
shrubby Boragineæ with flowers of vivid colours, and Orchideæ with large
and showy blossoms. The leguminous plants and Cruciferæ of the Cape are
peculiar; indeed all the vegetation has a distinct character, and both
genera and species are confined within narrower limits than anywhere
else, without any apparent cause to account for a dispersion so
arbitrary.
Notwithstanding the peculiarity of character with which the botany of
the Cape is so distinctly marked, it is connected with that of very
remote countries by particular plants; for example, of the seven species
of bramble which grow at the Cape, one is the common English bramble or
blackberry. The affinity with New Holland is greater: in portions of the
two countries in the same latitude there are several genera and species
that are identical: Proteaceæ are common to both, so are several genera
of Irideæ, Leguminosæ, Ficoideæ, Myrtaceæ, Diosmeæ, and some others. The
botany of the Cape is connected with that of India, and even that of
South America, by a few congeners.
The vegetation of Madagascar, though similar in many respects to the
floras of India and Africa, nevertheless is its own: the Brexiaceæ and
Chlenaceæ are orders found nowhere else: there are species of Bignonia,
Cycadeæ, and Zamias, a few of the mangosteen tribe, and in the mountains
some heaths. The Hydrogeton fenestralis is a singular aquatic plant,
with leaves like the dried skeletons of leaves, having no green fleshy
substance, and the Tanghinia veneniflua, which produces a poison so
deadly that its seeds are used to execute criminals, and one seed is
sufficient.
Some genera and species are common and peculiar to Madagascar, the Isle
of Bourbon, and Mauritius; yet of the 161 known genera in Madagascar
only 54 grow on the other two islands. The three islands are rich in
ferns. The Pandanus, or screw-pine genus, abounds in Bourbon and the
Mauritius, where it covers sandy plains, sending off strong aërial roots
from the stem, which strike into the ground and protect the plant from
the violent winds. Of 290 genera in Bourbon and Mauritius, 196 also grow
in India, though the species are different: there is also some
resemblance to the vegetation of South Africa, and there is a solitary
genus in common with America.
Eight or ten degrees north of Madagascar lies the group of the
Seychelles Islands, in which are groves of the peculiar palm which bears
the double cocoa-nut, or coco de mer, the growth of these islands only.
Its gigantic leaves are employed in the construction of houses, and
other parts of the plant are applied to various domestic purposes.
FLORA OF AUSTRALIA.
The interior of the Australian continent is so little known, that the
flora which has come under observation is confined to a short distance
from the coast; but it is of so strange and unexampled a character, that
it might easily be mistaken for the production of another planet. Many
entire orders of plants are known only in Australia, and the genera and
species of others that grow elsewhere assume new and singular forms.
Evergreens, with hard narrow leaves of a sombre, melancholy hue, are
prevalent, and there are whole shadowless forests of leafless trees; the
foot-stalks, dilated and set edgewise on the stem, supply their place
and perform the functions of nutrition; their altered position gives
them a singular appearance. Plants in other countries have glands on the
under side of the leaves, but in Australia there are glands on both
sides of these substitutes for leaves, which make them dull and
lustreless, and the changes of the seasons have no influence on the
unvarying olive-green of the Australian forests; even the grasses are
distinguished from the gramineæ of other countries by a remarkable
rigidity. Torres Straits, in the north, only 50 miles broad, separates
this dry, sombre vegetation from the luxuriant jungle-clad shores of New
Guinea, where deep and dark forests are rich in more than the usual
tropical exuberance—a more complete and sudden change can hardly be
imagined.
The peculiarly Australian vegetation is in the southern part of the
continent of New Holland distributed in distinct foci in the same
latitude, a circumstance of which the Proteaceæ afford a remarkable
instance. Nearly one-half of the known species of these beautiful shrubs
grow in the parallel of Port Jackson, from which they decrease in number
both to the south and the north. In that latitude, however, there are
twice as many species on the eastern side of the continent as there are
on the western, and four times as many as in the centre. Although the
Proteaceæ at both extremities of the continent have all the characters
peculiar to Australia, yet those on the eastern coast resemble the South
American species, while those on the western side have a resemblance to
African forms, and are confined to the same latitudes.
Species of this family are numerous in Van Diemen’s Land; where they
thrive at the elevation of 3500 feet, and also on the plains. The myrtle
tribe form a conspicuous feature in Australian vegetation, particularly
the genera Eucalyptus, Melaleuca, Beaufortia, and others, with splendid
blossoms—white, purple, yellow, crimson: 100 species of the Eucalypti,
most of them large trees, grow in New Holland; they form great forests
in the colony of Port Jackson. The leafless acacias, of which there are
93 species, are a prominent feature in the Australian landscape. The
leaves, except in very young plants, are merely foliaceous foot-stalks,
presenting their margin towards the stem; yet these and the Eucalypti
form the densest shade of any trees in the country. The genus Casuarina,
with its strange-jointed, drooping branches, called the marsh-oak, holds
a conspicuous place; it is chiefly confined to the principal parallel of
this vegetation, and produces excellent timber; it grows also in the
Malayan peninsula and South Sea islands. The Oxleya xanthoxylon or
yellow wood, one of the mahogany tribe, grows to great size, and the
Podocarpus aspleniifolia forms a new genus of the cone-bearing trees.
Some of the nettle tribe grow 15 or even 20 feet high. The Epacrideæ,
with scarlet, rose, and white blossoms, supply the place of, and very
much resemble, heaths, which do not exist here. The purple-flowering
Tremandreæ; the yellow-flowering Dilleniaceæ; the Doryanthes excelsa,
the most splendid of the lily tribe, 24 feet high, with a brilliant
crimson blossom; the Banksia, the most Australian of all the Proteaceæ;
with Zamias of new species, are all conspicuous in the vegetation of
Port Jackson.
There is a change on the north-eastern coast of New Holland. The
Castanospermum Australe is so plentiful that it furnishes the principal
food of the natives; a caper-tree of grotesque form, having the colossal
dimensions of the Senegal baobab, and extraordinary trees of the fig
genus, characterize this region. It sometimes occurs, when the seeds of
these fig-trees are deposited by birds on the iron-bark-tree, or
Eucalyptus resinifera, that they vegetate and enclose the trunk of the
tree entirely with their roots, whence they send off enormous lateral
branches, which so completely envelop the tree, that at last its top
alone is visible in the centre of the fig-tree, at the height of 70 or
80 feet. The Pandanus genus flourishes within the influence of the
sea-air. There are only six species of palms, equally local in their
habitations as elsewhere, not one of which grows on the west side of the
continent. The Araucaria excelsa, or Norfolk Island pine, produces the
best timber of any tree in this part of Australia: it, or others of the
same genus, extends from the parallel of 29° on the east coast towards
the equator, and grows over an area of 900 square miles, including New
Norfolk, New Caledonia, and other islands, some of which have no other
timber-tree: they are supposed to exist only within the influence of the
sea. The Asphodeleæ abound and extend to the southern extremity of Van
Dieman’s Land.
The south-western districts of New Holland exhibit another focus of
vegetation, less rich in species than that of Port Jackson, but not less
peculiar. The Kingia Australis, or grass-tree, rises solitary on the
sandy plains, with bare blackened trunks as if scathed by lightning,
occasioned by the fires of the natives, and tufts of long grassy leaves
at their extremities; Banksias, particularly the kind called wild
honeysuckle, are numerous; the Stylidium, whose blossoms are even more
irritable than the leaves of the sensitive mimosa, and plants with dry,
everlasting blossoms, characterize the flora of these districts. The
greater part of the southern vegetation vanishes on the northern coasts
of the continent, and what remains is mingled with the cabbage-palm,
various species of the nutmeg tribe, sandal-wood, and other Malayan
forms—a circumstance that may hereafter be of importance to our
colonists.
Orchideæ, chiefly terrestrial, are in great variety in the
extra-tropical regions of New Holland, and the grasses amount to
one-fourth of the monocotyledonous plants. Reeds of gigantic size form
forests in the marshes, and kangaroo-grass covers the plains.
Beautiful and varied as the flora is, New Holland is by no means
luxuriant in vegetation. There is little appearance of verdure, the
foliage is poor, the forests often shadeless, and the grass thin; but in
many valleys of the mountains, and even on some parts of the plains, the
vegetation is vigorous. It is not the least remarkable circumstance in
this extraordinary flora, that, with the exception of a few berries,
there is no edible fruit, grain, or vegetable indigenous either in New
Holland or Van Diemen’s Land.
The plants of New Holland prevail in every part of Van Diemen’s Land;
yet the coldness of the climate and the height of the mountains permit
genera of the northern hemisphere to be mixed with the vegetation of the
country. Butter-cups, anemones, and polygonums of peculiar species grow
on the mountain-tops, together with Proteaceæ and other Australian
plants. The plains glow with the warm golden flowers of the black
wattle, a Mimosa, emblematic of the island, and with the equally bright
and orange blossom of the gorse, which perfumes the whole atmosphere.
Only one tree-fern grows in this country; it rises 20 feet to the base
of the fronds, which spread into an elegant top, producing a shadow
gloomy as night-fall, and there are 150 species of orchis. The southern
extremities both of New Holland and Van Diemen’s Land are characterized
by the prevalence of evergreen plants: but the trees here, as well as in
the other parts of the southern hemisphere, do not shed their leaves
periodically as with us.
The botany of New Zealand appears to be intimately allied to that of New
Holland, South America, and South Africa, but chiefly to that of New
Holland. Noble trees form impenetrable forests, 60 of which yield the
finest timber, and many are of kinds to which we have nothing similar.
Here there are no representatives of our oak, birch, or willow, but five
species of beech and ten of Coniferæ have been discovered that are
peculiar to the country. They are all alpine, and only descend to the
level of the sea in the southern parts of the island. The Coniferæ of
the southern hemisphere are more local than in the northern; of the ten
species peculiar to New Zealand it is not certain that more than two or
three are found in the middle island, or that any of them grow south of
the 40th parallel. The Kauri pine, or Dammara australis, is indigenous
in all the three islands, but it is the only cone-bearing tree in North
Island, where it grows in hilly situations near the sea, shooting up
with a clean stem 60 or 90 feet, sometimes 30 feet in diameter, with a
spreading but thin top, and generally has a quantity of transparent
yellow resin imbedded at its base. This fine tree does not grow beyond
the 38th degree of S. lat. The Metrosideros tomentosa, with rich crimson
blossoms, is one of the greatest ornaments of the forests, and the
Metrosideros robusta the most singular. It grows to a very great size,
and sends shoots from its trunk and branches to the ground, which become
so massive that they support the old stem, which to all appearance loses
its vitality; it is in fact an enormous epiphyte, growing to, and not
from, the ground. Many of the smaller trees are of the laurel tribe,
with poisonous berries. Besides, there is a cabbage-palm, the Areca
sapida, elder, the Fuchsia excorticata, and other shrubs. This country
is probably the southern limit of the orchideous plants that grow on
trees. Before New Zealand was colonized, the natives lived chiefly on
the roots of the edible fern, Pteris esculenta, with which the country
is densely covered, mixed with a shrub that grows like a cypress, and
the tea-plant, which is a kind of myrtle whose berries afford an
intoxicating liquor. More than 140 species of fern are natives of these
islands, some of which are arborescent and 40 feet high; the country is
chiefly covered with these and with the New Zealand flax, Phormium
tenax, which grows abundantly both on the mountains and plains. The
vegetation is so vigorous on these volcanic islands that it grows richly
on the banks of hot springs, and even in water too hot to be
touched.[161]
In Norfolk Island, 152 species of plants are already known, and many, no
doubt, are yet to be discovered. The Cape gooseberry or Physalis edulis,
the guava-tree, pepper, white and swamp oak, iron, blood-wood, and lemon
trees, are native; also the bread-fruit tree, which blossoms, but does
not bear fruit. The Araucaria excelsa and some palms are indigenous, and
there are three times as many ferns as of all the other plants together.
The multitude of islands of Polynesia constitute a botanical region
apart from all others, though it is but little varied, and characterized
principally by the number of syngenesious plants with arborescent terms
and tree-ferns. In continental India and the tropical parts of New
Holland, the proportion of ferns to conspicuously-flowering plants is as
1 to 26, while on the Polynesian islands it is as 1 to 4, and perhaps
even as 1 to 3.[162]
The cocoa-nut palm and the pandanus are common to all the islands, but
the latter thrives only when exposed to the sea-air. This archipelago
produces Tacca pinnatifida, which yields arrow-root; the Morus
papyrifera, whose bark is manufactured into paper; and one of the
Dracæna tribe, from which an intoxicating liquor is made. Fifty
varieties of the bread-fruit tree are indigenous, which produce three or
four crops annually. It is most abundant in the Friendly, Society, and
Caroline groups, from whence it has been taken to America, where it
thrives in very low latitudes. The Sandwich group is peculiar in the
number of Goodenias and Lobelias; while the Coral Islands, whose flora
is entirely borrowed, rarely have two species belonging to the same
genus; the fragrant suriana and sweet-scented Tournfortia are among
their scanty vegetation.
The two species of banana-trees which are natives of southern Asia have
been introduced at an unknown and probably early period into the
Polynesian islands, and all tropical countries in the eastern and
western hemispheres. Syria is their northern limit, where the Musa
paradisaica grows to 34° N. lat. The sweet fruit of these trees
produces, on the same extent of ground, 44 times as much nutriment as
the potato, and 133 times more than wheat.
St. Helena, the Sandwich group, New Zealand, Juan Fernandez, and above
all the Galapagos islands, are more peculiar in their floras than any
other tracts of their size. The Galapagos archipelago consists of 10
principal islands lying immediately under the equator, 600 miles from
the coast of America. They are entirely volcanic, and contain 2000
extinct craters. The vegetation is so peculiar that, of 180 plants which
have been collected, 100 are found nowhere else; of 21 species of
Compositæ all but one are new, and belong to 10 genera, 8 of which are
confined to these islands exclusively.
This flora has no analogy to that of Polynesia, but it bears a double
relation to the flora of South America. The plants peculiar to the
Galapagos islands are, for the most part, allied to those on the cooler
part of the continent or on high lands, while the others are the same
with those that abound in the hot damp intertropical regions of the
continent. The greatest number of peculiar plants grow on the tops of
the islands where the sea vapour is condensed, and many of them are
confined to some one islet of the group. Though this flora is singular,
it is poor compared with that of the Sandwich group, or the Cape de
Verde Islands.[163]