Abstract
THE importance of such facts as these in connection with geographical distribution can hardly be overrated. It is customary to compare the range of a plant with the corresponding mean annual temperature. But it is obvious that the exterminating effect of occasional low temperature must override every other condition. An island is often the last refuge of a species not found elsewhere. Such a frost as occurred in Hongkong would erase the Double Cocoa-nut in all probability from the face of creation, if it occurred in the Seychelles. In any case islands are not easily restocked except with littoral vegetations and the trees distributed by carpophagous birds. It seems evident therefore that the geographical distribution of plants may still be influenced by causes which are catastrophic in their nature. Of this, although not from cold, there is already a striking illustration in the simultaneous destruction of the entire forest vegetation which at one time covered the island of Trinidad in the South Atlantic. Mr. Knight, in the account which he has given in the “Cruise of the Falcon,” conjectures that the cause was more probably volcanic than a long drought.
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THISELTON-DYER, W. Severe Frost at Hongkong. Nature 47, 536 (1893). https://doi.org/10.1038/047536a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/047536a0
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