The Fact Of A Vegetation So Closely Allied To That Of Europe
Occurring On Isolated Mountain Peaks, In An Island
South of the
Equator, while all the lowlands for thousands of miles around are
occupied by a flora of a
Totally different character, is very
extraordinary; and has only recently received an intelligible
explanation. The Peak of Teneriffe, which rises to a greater
height and is much nearer to Europe, contains no such Alpine
flora; neither do the mountains of Bourbon and Mauritius. The
case of the volcanic peaks of Java is therefore somewhat
exceptional, but there are several analogous, if not exactly
parallel cases, that will enable us better to understand in what
way the phenomena may possibly have been brought about.
The higher peaks of the Alps, and even of the Pyrenees, contain a
number of plants absolutely identical with those of Lapland, but
nowhere found in the intervening plains. On the summit of the
White Mountains, in the United States, every plant is identical
with species growing in Labrador. In these cases all ordinary
means of transport fail. Most of the plants have heavy seeds,
which could not possibly be carried such immense distances by the
wind; and the agency of birds in so effectually stocking these
Alpine heights is equally out of the question. The difficulty was
so great, that some naturalists were driven to believe that these
species were all separately created twice over on these distant
peaks. The determination of a recent glacial epoch, however, soon
offered a much more satisfactory solution, and one that is now
universally accepted by men of science.
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