UNIQUE FLORA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 21, 4 November 1938, Page 8

UNIQUE FLORA.

JUAN FERNANDEZ. LINKS WITH NEW ZEALAND. Juan Fernandez, the group of two islands off the coast of Chile, were described in picture and story by Professor Carl Skottsberg, who is Professor of Botany at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, at Victoria College last night.

Professor Skottsberg, who is giving a series of lectures at the invitation of the University of New Zealand, explained why flora found in South America, New Zealand, Hawaii, endemic types and primitive species now extinct, should exist on the oceanic group of Juan Fernandez. His opinion was that Juan Fernandez, now some 300 miles from South America, once formed part of the coast of that continent. This would explain the existence of South American species there, he said. He also postulated a direct land connection with New Zealand, through the Antarctic continent.

Professor Skottsberg was botanist in the Swedish Antarctic expedition in 1904, contemporaneous with Captain Scott’s expedition. He visited Juan Fernandez in 1908 and was in Patagonia in 1909 v He was in Hawaii in 1922 and 1926, and was a professor in America in 1934-35. At Gothenburg he holds a dual position, being directed of the Botanical Gardens, in addition to his university post. Professor Skottsberg prefaced his lecture by lantern slide illustrations showing the formidable nature of the islands physically. The larger island, Masatierra, he said, was inhabited by about 250 people from the mainland, who existed by fishing, there being practically no agriculture. Not Even a Beach. Masafuera, so steep that even the goats did not pass frojn one side of the island to the other, did not even have a beach. Professor Skottsberg showed a slide picturing waves dashing in against a. cliff shelf, which, he said, was the best landing place. The island had been deserted for many years, but there were houses, a reminder of a former Chilean penal colony—“a most unfortunate enter-

prise,” said the speaker, “since the colonists had for their principal occupation the destruction of the forest. They had nothing else to do.” Professor Skottsberg said that the flora of the Juan Fernandez Islands was more closely related to that of the Western Pacific, some intervening island, and Hawaii than that of South America.

The vegetation on Masatierra was of the evergreen rain forest type, which until man came must have covered the island. Now, with the vegetation gone, some parts of the island were rapidly being eroded. One shrub, introduced from Chile, was of the same species as the New Zealand wineberry. It was proving very destructive to the forest, and had been spreading for fifty years or so and now a law had been passed prohibiting the use of indigenous forest woods for fuel. That might check the spread of the wineberry. Tree-ferns, not found among Chilean flora, grew very very densely at the 1500 ft level. Mosses were also a prominent feature, handing from the trees, just as in New Zealand. On the table land on Masafuera the grasses and sorrel were foreign. It was a mystery what grew there before. The speaker believed that the topography was against Masanniera ever having been covered with forest. It was a remarkable fact that only about 19 per cent, of the flowering shrubs of the islands was common to each. Masatierra and Massafuera each largely had its own indigenous species.' On Masafuera goats, descendants of Selkirk’s animals, had donp great damage. However, dense fern growth was common to both islands, said the speaker, instancing cases where its impenetrable nature had turned his party back. The leading forest trees were myrtles, of the same type as the New Zealand rata and pohutukawa. In the Juan Fernandez Islands however, these were of the American genus and thus did not present any botanical problems; Professor Skottsberg quoted examples of trees, including sandalwoods and ferns, found in the Juan Fernandez group and also on islands thousands of miles away, but not on the American mainland. A picture of the last sandalwood at Juan Fernandez was shown, the speaker stating that shiploads of it were carried away for commercial use before it was discovered botanically. The presence of such species as coprosma in New Zealand and at Juan Fernandez suggested that formerly there was a direct land connection; The kowhai species were found in a ring around the Antarctic. The piri piri, well known in New Zealand was more largely represented in America and there were five species on Juan Fernandez.

After detailing the relation between Juan Fernandez flora and that of other countries, the professor dealt with unique specimens in the group. There was, for example, a shrub which was a survival from the Jurassic Age, and there was another genus which was found only at Juan Fernandez. Mr P. Levi, chairman of the College Council , presided and Professor Skottsberg was thanked at the conclusion of his lecture by Professor H. 11. Kirk and Professor Evans.