Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-03-23
Similar FlOraS.

At meeting of the Academy of Sciences
at San Francisco, this week, Mrs. DR.. Cur
ran read paper upon Comparison of the
Floras of California and Chile" In her
opening remarks she said: THE republic
OF Chile, connected by an unbroken coast
line, lies to the southeast of us, and at a
distance of more than one-fifth of the
earth's circumference. Its geographical
situation is similar to our own. 1t is on
the western slope of chain of mountains
which is practically continuous with our
Rockies. 1t extends over the same degrees
of latitude in the southern hemisphere as
California in the northern. 1t possesses
similar climate, though naturally its sea-
sons are the direct opposite of ours. The
unbroken coast lipe would at first glance
seem TO account in some measure for very
numerous genera and species, either identi-
cal or closely related in the two countries
This line, however, leads through the
tropics, where all our species and most of
the genera disappear. Accepting, as most
of us do, the Darwinian theory of the
origin of the species, we can hardly bring
ourselves TO believe that in such widely
separated districts parallel lines of evolu-
ton have resulted in the production of
many identical or closely related species.
The intervening tropics dispose very effect
ually of any possibility of progressive lnva-
sion. The theory of a different plane of
the ecliptic which has been advanced to
account for various phenomena, cannot
satisfactorily serve in this case, for
even if established, the change
took place at so remote a time that
great divergence OF species would have oc-
CURED. There remains to US the theory of
communications 1t has been the custom
for some time to attribute the presence of
certain plants along the coast to introduce
ton in the wool of sheep, to cargoes of
wheat and the ballast of ships. This brings
US to the particular inquiry in which we
are at present concerned, how did these
plants scatter themselves in former ages
We shall have to interrogate the meteorol-
ogist, and ask him for a chart for the cur
rents of air, the course and extent of great
storms, the possibility of one little froic
some wind after another carrying seeds and
even plants in their course. We must learn
also the length of time vitality remains in
different seeds when immersed in sea
water, and the course of ocean currents.
We must ask the migratory birds what
seeds they carry adhering to their feathers
or buried in their soft down. When these
questions are satisfactorily answered we
shall have made fair beginning in our
search"
Mrs. Curran then by means of eight
cards of mounted specimens, described in
a technical manner the wonderful similar
ity of Californian and Chilean flora, and
concluded her paper by saying: In max
ing this short notice l have wished to call
the attention of botanists to the danger of
naming species here without due consider
alton of such as may be found in other
parts of the world, but particularly Chile.
There are many persons who believe. or at
least act as if they believe, that two plants
or two insects found few hundred miles
apart are necessarily distinct"