receives support
from the case of South Africa, which also contains a large and important
representation of the northern flora. But here we see no indications (or
very slight ones) of that southern influx which has given Australia such a
community of vegetation with the Antarctic lands. There are no less than
sixty _genera_ of strictly north temperate plants in South Africa, none of
which occur in Australia; while very few of the _species_, so
characteristic of Australia, New Zealand, and Fuegia, are found there. It
{525} is clear, therefore, that South Africa has received its European
plants by the direct route through the Abyssinian highlands and the lofty
equatorial mountains, and mostly at a distant period when the conditions
for migration were somewhat more favourable than they are now. The much
greater directness of the route from Northern Europe to South Africa than
to Australia; and the existence even now of lofty mountains and extensive
highlands for a large portion of the distance, will explain (what Sir
Joseph Hooker notes as "a very curious fact") why South Africa has more
very northern European _genera_ than Australia, while Australia has more
identical _species_ and a better representation on the whole of the
European flora--this being clearly due to the large influx of species it
has received from the Antarctic Islands, in addition to those which have
entered it by way of Asia. The greater distance of South Africa even now
from any of these islands, and the much deeper sea to the south of the
African continent, than in the case of Tasmania and New Zealand, indicating
a smaller recent extension southward, is all quite in harmony with the
facts of distribution of the northern flora above referred to.

_Supposed Connection of South Africa and Australia._--There remains,
however, the small amount of direct affinity between the vegetation of
South Africa and that of Australia, New Zealand, and Temperate South
America, consisting in all of fifteen genera, five of which are confined to
Australia and South Africa, while several natural orders are better
represented in these two countries than in any other part of the world.
This resemblance has been supposed to imply some former land-connection of
all the great southern lands, but it appears to me that any such
supposition is wholly unnecessary. The differences between the faunas and
floras of these countries are too great and too radical to render it
possible th