VII. The endemic flora of Ceylon, with reference to geographical distribution and evolution in general

Abstract
The completion of my revised catalogue of the Ceylon flora has enabled me to put together statistical notes on some of its more interesting features, and in the present paper I shall deal with the endemic flora. Though only separated from India by a narrow strait, which at Adam’s Bridge is barely 28 miles across, sprinkled with islets and sandbanks, and from 6 to 12 feet in depth at low water, Ceylon contains an immense endemic flora, which enables it to rank with many oceanic islands: even the Sandwich Islands have not so many. The flora of Ceylon consists of 2809 species of flowering plants,! and of these no fewer than 809 are endemic, or a proportion of 28.8 per cent. And these are not mere varieties, or doubtful species, but good Linnean species, accepted by such authorities as Trimen and Sir Joseph Hooker. On the other hand, the number of endemic genera is only 23 out of 1027, so that the island does not rise to the rank of a widely separated province in geographical botany. Incidentally, the facts about to be brought forward are an apparently insuperable objection to the theory of natural selection and adaptation. In previous papers dealing with the endemic flora of Ceylon I have endeavoured to prove that the endemic species have not been evolved in any kind of advantageous response to local conditions, and 1 have called attention to the fact that they are much rarer than the species of wider distribution that occur alongside of them.

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