Several Species Of Honeysuckle, St.
John's-Wort, And Guelder-Rose Abound, And At About 9,000 Feet We
First Meet With The Rare And Beautiful Royal Cowslip (Primula
Imperialis), Which Is Said To Be Found Nowhere Else In The World
But On This Solitary Mountain Summit.
It has a tall, stout stem,
sometimes more than three feet high, the root leaves are eighteen
inches long, and it bears several whorls of cowslip-like flowers,
instead of a terminal cluster only.
The forest trees, gnarled and
dwarfed to the dimensions of bushes, reach up to the very rim of
the old crater, but do not extend over the hollow on its summit.
Here we find a good deal of open ground, with thickets of shrubby
Artemisias and Gnaphaliums, like our southernwood and cudweed,
but six or eight feet high; while Buttercups, Violets,
Whortleberries, Sow-thistles, Chickweed, white and yellow
Cruciferae Plantain, and annual grasses everywhere abound. Where
there are bushes and shrubs, the St. John's-wort and Honeysuckle
grow abundantly, while the Imperial Cowslip only exhibits its
elegant blossoms under the damp shade of the thickets.
Mr. Motley, who visited the mountain in the dry season, and paid
much attention to botany, gives the following list of genera of
European plants found on or near the summit: Two species of
Violet, three of Ranunculus, three of Impatiens, eight or ten of
Rubus, and species of Primula, Hypericum, Swertia, Convallaria
(Lily of the Valley), Vaccinium (Cranberry), Rhododendron,
Gnaphalium, Polygonum, Digitalis (Foxglove), Lonicera (Honey-
suckle), Plantago (Rib-grass), Artemisia (Wormwood), Lobelia,
Oxalis (Wood-sorrel), Quercus (Oak), and Taxus (Yew). A few of
the smaller plants (Plantago major and lanceolata, Sonchus
oleraceus, and Artemisia vulgaris) are identical with European
species.
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.
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