its more striking features will not be out of place; and we
fortunately have a pretty full knowledge of it, owing to the researches of
the German botanist Dr. W. Hildebrand.[76]

Considering their extreme isolation, their uniform volcanic soil, and the
large proportion of the chief island which consists of barren lava-fields,
the flora of the Sandwich Islands is extremely rich, consisting, so far as
at present known, of 844 species of flowering plants and 155 ferns. This is
considerably richer than the Azores (439 Phanerogams and 39 ferns), which
though less extensive are perhaps better known, or than the Galapagos (332
Phanerogams), which are more strictly comparable, being equally volcanic,
while their somewhat smaller area may perhaps be compensated by their
proximity to the American continent. Even New Zealand with more than twenty
times the area of the Sandwich group, whose soil and climate are much more
varied and whose botany has been thoroughly explored, has not a very much
larger number of flowering plants (935 species), while in ferns it is
barely equal.

{322}

The following list gives the number of indigenous species in each natural
order.

_Number of Species in each Natural Order in the Hawaiian Flora, excluding
the introduced Plants._

DICOTYLEDONS. 48. Gentianaceae (Erythraea) 1
49. Loganiaceae 7
1. Ranunculaceae 2 50. Apocynaceae 4
2. Menispermaceae 4 51. Hydrophyllaceae (Nama ...
3. Papaveraceae 1 allies Andes) 1
4. Cruciferae 3 52. Oleaceae 1
5. Capparidaceae 2 53. Solanaceae 12
6. Violaceae 8 54. Convolvulaceae 14
7. Bixaceae 2 55. Boraginaceae 3
8. Pittosporaceae 10 56. Scrophulariaceae 2
9. Caryophyllaceae 23 57. Gesneriaceae 24
10. Portulaceae 3 58. Myoporaceae 1
11. Guttiferae 1 59. Verbenaceae 1
12. Ternstraemiaceae 1 60. Labiatae 39
13. Malvaceae 14 61. Plantaginaceae 2
14. Sterculiaceae 2 62. Nyctaginaceae 5
15. Tiliaceae 1 63. Amarantaceae 9