It is a further difficulty that if the constituents of the Great Atlas Flora had, to a large extent, travelled by the route here indicated, other species, now inhabiting the mountains of Southern Spain, could scarcely fail to take the same road, and a much nearer connection than is now apparent would have been established between the Floras of these two mountain regions.
It is, at least, possible that the wide diffusion of many of the species constituting the so-called Germanic Flora may date from a period much more remote than is ordinarily supposed; and it is a circumstance not without significance that so many species of this type prove themselves capable of tolerating wide variations in conditions of soil and climate.
FOOTNOTES:
[1]In the Superior Zone of the Sierra Nevada I include all species found above the level of about 1,600 m., considering this to correspond with the level of 2,000 m. in the Great Atlas.
[2]The name Sierra Nevada is here used in a wide sense, and is intended to include the Serrania de Ronda, and the other mountains of Andalusia. Under this head, the plants classed as ‘confined to adjoining regions’ are either common to the Sierra Nevada and the mountains of Northern Spain, including the Pyrenees, both Spanish and French, or else are common to the Sierra Nevada and the mountains of Northern Africa.
[3]The Bulgardagh has been introduced into this table rather for the sake of contrast than as showing similarity to the conditions in the Great Atlas. The species classed as ‘confined to adjoining regions’ are all found in the other mountain districts of Asia Minor, and it has been necessary to include under the heading ‘Wide-spread Mediterranean’ a large number of Oriental species, whose western limit is in Greece or Crete. As compared with the Great Atlas, the number of species common to the western and south-western parts of Europe is here quite insignificant.
[4]See ‘Spicilegium Floræ Maroccanæ,’ in Proceedings of the Linnæan Society, ‘Botany,’ vol. xvi. parts 93 to 97 inclusive.
[5]The only possible exception to this statement among the plants enumerated in our list is that entered as Asparagus scoparius, Lowe (?) From the differences between the foliage and that of other known species it was at first entered as a new species peculiar to the Atlas. Subsequent comparison with a Madeira specimen from the late Mr. Lowe suggested their possible identity. Should this be hereafter verified, the number of endemic species in the tables given above must be reduced from 75 to 74.
[6]The only apparent exception is Sagina Linnæi. This is habitually a mountain plant; but in Germany it is often seen in the moorland region, at a level of about 2,500 feet above the sea.