[[One more time: the flora of islands is quite limited.]]
“The southwest Pacific island of New Caledonia, covering approximately 17,000 km², has a remarkably diverse and highly endemic flora for an area its size, with an estimated 3,137 native species of angiosperms and gymnosperms (79% endemic), representing about 763 genera (14% endemic), and 169 families (3% endemic).”
“The flora of Andaman and Nicobar group of islands, India, comprises approx 2200 species of flowering plants; of these, “
“Cuba. Cuba is by far the most important island in the region in terms of biodiversity, particularly for plant diversity, with more than 6,500 vascular plants, of which about half are endemic.”
There are many more examples- All are islands which cropped up and which had zero flora in the beginning and hwich grew diverse flora over time- all of which made hteir way there in various ways- some through birds carrying seeds in excrement, some through other animals doing hte same, some through drift. From the basic KINDS that did survive, we now have a variety of subspecies- all of which science is finding out can occure quite rapidly and with great variety.
The story so far:
[[One more time: the flora of islands is quite limited.]]
“The southwest Pacific island of New Caledonia, covering approximately 17,000 km², has a remarkably diverse and highly endemic flora for an area its size, with an estimated 3,137 native species of angiosperms and gymnosperms (79% endemic), representing about 763 genera (14% endemic), and 169 families (3% endemic).”
“The flora of Andaman and Nicobar group of islands, India, comprises approx 2200 species of flowering plants; of these, “
“Cuba. Cuba is by far the most important island in the region in terms of biodiversity, particularly for plant diversity, with more than 6,500 vascular plants, of which about half are endemic.”
There are many more examples- All are islands which cropped up and which had zero flora in the beginning and hwich grew diverse flora over time- all of which made hteir way there in various ways- some through birds carrying seeds in excrement, some through other animals doing hte same, some through drift. From the basic KINDS that did survive, we now have a variety of subspecies- all of which science is finding out can occure quite rapidly and with great variety.
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You have (inadvertently, I assume) reinforced my point. Those numbers, while large for the size for the island, are actually quite small in terms of plant biodiversity, thus reinforcing the position that very few plants can survive a prolonged flood.