author says that Mr. F. Smith, of the British Museum, has related to him the following anecdote, which confirms the opinion that Fulgora is certainly luminous: "Whilst shewing these insects to two young middys, one of them exclaimed, 'Why, look here! these are the Candle-flies that we used to knock down with our caps in China.'" If our friend, Mr. F. Smith, were to tell us that he had seen a Fulgora emitting light, we would at once believe him; but we do not think the reader will believe in the fact on such evidence as appears decisive to Dr. Phipson. In addition, he urges that the fact must be so, as Dr. Donovan has carefully figured these insects, and his figures show them in the act of emitting light from the points of their peculiar proboscis. If he had only known it, he might have also referred to the title pages of the "Entomological Magazine" for Fulgora showing a wondrous luminosity, 'sine me dare lumina terris.' But we doubt if, in the discussion above referred to, Mr. Newman brought this fact forward as conclusive.

Into the historical, theoretical, and practical considerations which form the fourth and concluding portion of this volume, we do not propose to enter. We cannot recommend this volume as a complete, or even a tolerably complete, treatise on Phosphorescence. But it nevertheless contains a compendium of facts of great interest, many of which may be new to some of our readers.

VIII.-NEW COLONIAL FLORAS.

FLORA OF THE BRITISH WEST INDIAN ISLANDS. By A. H. R. Grisebach, M.D., F.L.S., Professor of Botany in the University of Göttingen. London: Reeve and Co. 1864. 8vo. pp. 789. ENUMERATIO PLANTARUM ZEYLANIE; AN ENUMERATION OF CEYLON PLANTS, WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF THE NEW AND LITTLE KNOWN GENERA AND SPECIES, OBSERVATIONS ON THEIR HABITS, USES, NATIVE NAMES, ETC. By G. H. K. Thwaites, F.L.S., Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradenia, Ceylon; assisted in the identification of the species and synonymy, by J. D. Hooker, M.D., F.R.S., &c. London: Dulau and Co., Soho Square. 1864. 8vo. pp. 483.

DR. GRISEBACH'S "Flora of the British West Indian Islands," is the only work containing a complete account of the plants of any con

siderable tropical area that has ever been brought to a termination, and as such it marks an epoch in the history of descriptive Botany. It is the first of the Colonial Floras, published by Government, the origin and progress of which are detailed in the vols. for 1861 and 1863 of the present work. It includes all that is known of the Floras of Jamaica, the Bahama and Turk Islands, Virgin Isles, St. Kitts, Nevis, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Vincent, Grenada, Antigua, Barbadoes, Tobago, Trinidad, and other smaller islands. Of these by far the largest and best explored is Jamaica, containing 5470 square miles, and mountains of 8000 feet elevation. The Bahamas rank next, with 5100 miles in all. They lie chiefly beyond the Tropic (between 27° and 21° N. Lat.), present no elevation of any importance, and their Flora, which has not been well explored, is probably neither rich nor varied. Trinidad has been pretty well botanized, it presents an area of nearly 2000 square miles, and points of elevation of 3000 feet. In its climate, geographical features, and Flora, it partakes of the characters of the neighbouring coast of Cumana, and should perhaps rank botanically rather with Venezuela, than with the West India Islands proper. Of the other Islands, Dominica has been the best explored, but all want a careful botanical investigation. It may not be the case that they will add many species to the Flora, but they will certainly extend the known range of the species very materially.

The main botanical features of the West Indies are of course tropical American, and with the exception of the slight approximation of the Flora of the most northern islands to that of the South-Eastern American States, and the more evident affinity of that of the southern islands with the Venezuelan, there seems to be no very marked or contrasting subdivisions of the Flora. Still peculiarities occur, which lead Dr. Grisebach to recognise five botanical divisions in the Archipelago. He says in his preface:

"Though reaching beyond the Tropics (N. Lat. 10° to 27°), the West Indian Islands present an entirely tropical character in their vegetable productions, and the Northern Bahamas in this respect are quite distinct from the opposite continental shore of Florida, from which they are separated by the Gulf stream, while Trinidad, lying almost contiguous to the delta of the Orinoco, partakes of the

According to the American authority which Dr. Grisebach has followed; but 4256 square miles, according to British maps.

Flora of Venezuela and Guiana. Jamaica again, from its mountainous character, and more distant position,-most of the Leeward Islands, from being wooded volcanos,-and the majority of the Windward ones, with a dry climate and a low calcareous soil, form three divisions of this tropical archipelago, which show as many peculiarities. Thus the whole of the British West Indies, as comprised in this Flora, may be divided into five natural sections, each with a distinct botanical character, and including the following islands, the geographical area of which is added according to the American almanac for 1858, and other sources.

III. Western Caribbean Islands (most Leeward, and

including some of the Windward Islands).

IV. Eastern Caribbean Islands (most Windward, and some

Leeward Islands).

"Thus the territory comprised may be estimated as amounting to about 15,000 English square miles, or nearly twice as much as the area of Wales. Haiti alone is nearly twice as large as the whole of the British West Indies; Cuba surpasses them almost three times, and this will account for the fact, that, considerable as were the materials at my disposition, and great the exertions of so many excellent collectors, the number of novelties in my Flora is, compa

ratively speaking, small, while Cuba affords a daily increasing number of unpublished species. Considering, at the same time, how neglected by botanists Cuba has been, if we compare it with the standard works of men like Jacquin and Swartz, the publications of whom, with regard to the West Indies, were almost confined to the British possessions, it will appear probable, that by far the greatest part of the plants of our territory consists of old species; these indeed being the foundation of our scientific knowledge of the Flora of tropical America.

"To study these primary species and their varieties (which have so often been misunderstood that their synonyms are far more numerous than their numbers) to show that many of them range through the whole of tropical America, and some even beyond its limits, and that a considerable number of so-called geographical species must be reduced, is an object of great systematic importance, and this has been the aim which, during my labour, I have constantly had in view."

The first remark we must make on the West Indian Flora is the apparent absence of temperate American species or types on the loftier mountains. These, as stated above, rise in Jamaica to 8000 feet, and yet, with the exception of a few naturalized plants, as Fragaria vesca, Ranunculus repens, &c., we find scarcely any European or North American temperate genera or species, and very few Andean either. Indeed, of nearly 1100 West Indian genera, less than 100 (exclusive of aquatic genera) are decidedly northern, and of this number the majority are tropical genera represented in Europe. The more decidedly temperate genera represented in the West Indies amount to only thirty. Of these, the most remarkable are Cakile (C. æqualis, a species closely allied to our C. maritima, and which has indeed been reduced to it by A. Richard and others); Drosera (D.longifolia B., an American form of the European plant which ranges from Canada to South Brazil, but which, in the West Indies, has hitherto been found only in Trinidad); various American species belonging to Salix, Vaccinium, Prunus, Rubus, Galium, Lactuca, Sonchus, Pinguicula, Plantago, and other genera which are found in the Cordilleras; and lastly, a species of Allium, which ranges from the United States to Chili. The actually European and North American species, exclusive of water plants and sub-tropical grasses, believed to be indigenous in the Islands, are.

N.H.R.-1865,

E

of which several are possibly introduced, and most of the rest are weeds of wide dispersion.

Whether the lofty mountains of Cuba and Haiti present a larger assemblage of Northern forms, we do not know; the Mexican Alps certainly do, and as there is a marked affinity between the more peculiar vegetation of the Blue Mountains of Jamaica and the Mexican Alps, on the one hand, and the New Grenada ranges on the other, it may prove that there has been an ancient geological connection between these regions, previous to that cold epoch which favoured the migration of Northern forms across the Tropics which Mr. Darwin so plausibly advocates. Be this as it may, the almost total absence of typical North American plants in the West Indies, is perhaps the most singular feature in the whole Flora, one that is incompatible with their having shared in the effects of a glacial migration.

On the other hand, it may be argued that the difference between the temperature of the islands, and of even the warmest of the North American States, is so great, that this alone may have expelled what Northern plants once inhabited the islands. In favour of this view, it must be stated, that it is difficult to conceive greater contrasts of climate within equally small distances than obtain between the Bahamas and Florida. This, as is well known, is due to the influence of the Gulf stream, which, where it impinges on the American Coast, does not raise its winter temperature much, but which, bathing even the northernmost Bahama Islands off the Floridan coast, raises their winter temperature to that of the tropics.

As to the extent to which this induced climate may have affected the Northern plants, we can only judge by observing its effects upon such as have been introduced by the agency of man. Of these, a small proportion have run wild, or become naturalized; and it may be worth while to devote a short space to the consideration of them. Fortunately Dr. Grisebach has most carefully discriminated between the truly naturalized species and occasional escapes, and thus enables us to extract the following information from the body of his work:

In the British West Indies the naturalised species amount to less