Prior to European settlement, the Caribbean was dominated by forested ecosystems. The insular Caribbean has been considered a biodiversity hotspot. Although species diversity is lower than on mainland systems, endemism is high.
Species diversity is highest and endemism is lowest in Trinidad, which has a predominantly continental flora. Endemism is highest in Cuba and Hispaniola, the largest members of the Greater Antilles.
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“Thirty—the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“The advice of their elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935)
“Bright yellow, red, and orange,
The leaves come down in hosts;
The trees are Indian princes,
But soon they’ll turn to ghosts;”
—William Allingham (1824–1889)
“It is a curious thing to be a woman in the Caribbean after you have been a woman in these United States.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)