Abstract
IT is now more than half a century since Sir Joseph Hooker published his famous essay on the flora of this archipelago, founded mainly on the collections made by Charles Darwin. Since then, until within the last decade, little had been done towards a more complete investigation of this highly interesting flora and fauna. It is to various American expeditions that we are indebted for a more complete knowledge. The late Dr. G. Baur was foremost in this work, and his collections and theories were briefly discussed in NATURE (lii., 1895, p. 623). Baur boldly promulgated the theory of subsidence, in opposition to upheaval, in accounting for the origin of the islands, basing it upon biological evidence. Dr. Robinson, the author of the essay under consideration, and Mr. J. M. Greenman, his collaborator, in working out Baur's botanical collections were almost converted to Baur's theory. In the present work Dr, Robinson practically recants, and attempts to demonstrate that the composition of the flora faypurs the assumption that it is derived rather than original. I will first give some particulars of the general composition of the flora, limiting them, however, to the vascular plants.
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HEMSLEY, W. Flora of the Galapagos Islands 1 . Nature 67, 561–562 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/067561a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/067561a0