166 . MR. W. B. HEMSLEY ON THE FLORA 
4, Exumeration of the Vascular Plants of the Tonga Islands, 
together with their Distribution, Local and General. 
The following Enumeration is, perhaps, not quite complete, 
because I have not searched the herbaria systematically through ; 
that being a task beyond the time at my disposal. Nevertheless 
it is doubtless very nearly exhaustive so far as Kew and the 
British Museum Collections are concerned, because I have taken 
up every species recorded by Seemann (‘ Flora Vitiensis ) as 
existing in the British Museum from the group. I have included 
all the lists of Tonga plants in the Kew Herbarium—or rather 
Mr. Jeffrey, to a great extent, collected this information for me ; 
and I have specially examined the Kew Herbarium in many 
instances for plants of whose existence in the Tonga group 
I had no evidence, although they are known to inhabit either 
the Fijis or Navigator Islands, or both. Among such as I have 
not found are Lepidium piscidium, Forst., Kleinhovia hospita, 
Linn., Afzelia bijuga, A. Gray, Parinarium insularum, A. Gray, 
P. laurinum, A. Gray, and Flagellaria indica, Linn. But Mr. 
Lister particularly mentions, p. 162, that he is of opinion that 
he did not exhaust the botany of the island of Eua. Briefly, the 
sources are the British Museum and Kew Herbaria; published 
so far as the former is concerned, and mostly unpublished so far 
as the latter is concerned. The principal books used are A. Gray’s 
* Botany ’(1854) of the United States Exploring Expedition, 1838 
~1842 ; Seemann’s ‘ Flora Vitiensis,’ 1865-73 ; Hillebrand’s ‘ Flora 
of the Hawaiian Islands,’ 1888; and Drake del Castillo’s ‘ Flore 
de la Polynésie Francaise,’ 1893. I did not think it desirable to 
consult the earlier works, such as Endlicher’s ‘ Bemerkungen 
tiber die Flora der Siidseeinseln,’ 1836, and Forster’s ‘ Florule 
Insularum Australium Prodromus,’ 1786, because without a 
great expenditure of time it might have led to confusion in the 
nomenclature. 
The plan of the Enumeration is to give as near as possible the 
most generally used name of each plant, with a few of the more 
important synonyms, such as are employed in the works named, 
followed by the names of the persons who have collected the 
plant in the Tonga Islands, and its general distribution *. The 
* we - . 
In the distribution, “Samoa” is employed to designate the particular island 
and “ Navigator” the group. Thi i 
nc p. This group is reckoned east Tonga or 
Friendly Islands, Sob the tongs ot 
