sixteenth; and in a manuscript catalogue of plants of equinoctial America, in the library of Sir Joseph Banks, they are nearly in the same proportion.
In estimating the comparative value of these different materials, I may, in the first place, observe that though the herbarium from Congo was collected in the dry season of the country, there is no reason to suppose on that account that the proportion of this family of plants, in particular, is materially or even in any degree diminished, nor can [446 this objection be stated to the Sierra Leone collection, in which its relative number is still smaller.
To the Compositæ in Dr. Roxburgh's Flora Indica, however, a considerable addition ought, no doubt, to be made; partly on the ground of his having apparently paid less attention to them himself, and still more because his correspondents, whose contributions form a considerable part of the Flora, have evidently in a great measure neglected them. This addition being made, the proportion of Compositæ in India would not differ very materially from that of the north coast of New Holland, according to my own collection, which I consider as having been formed in more favorable circumstances, and as probably giving an approximation of the true proportions in the country examined. Baron Humboldt's herbarium, though absolutely greater than any of the others referred to on this subject, is yet, with relation to the vast regions whose vegetation it represents, less extensive than either that of the north coast of New Holland, or even of the line of the Congo. And as it is in fact as much the Flora of the Andes as of the coasts of intratropical America, containing families nearly or wholly unknown on the shores of equinoctial countries, it may be supposed to have several of those families which are common to all such countries, and among them Compositæ, in very different proportion. At the same time it is not improbable that the relative number of this family in equinoctial America, may be greater than in the similar regions of other intratropical countries; while there seems some reason to suppose it considerably smaller on the west coast of Africa. This diminished
