VERNACULAR NAMES OF PLANTS. 158 
discovery. In most cases they are identical with the common name 
applied to them in the regions from which they have been directly 
obtained, or have been somewhat moditied to correspond with the 
genius of the language spoken by the natives of their new environment. 
Of greater interest to the student of ethnology and of the origin of 
cultivated plants is a comparison of the common names of plants dis- 
seminated in prehistoric times throughout the entire range of their 
cultivation. From such a comparison it has been possible to determine 
the origin of a number of the more common food staples, such as 
sugar cane, the coconut, the winged yam (//oscored alata), the common 
names of which are etymologically identical from the eastern limits of 
Polynesia throughout the islands of the Pacitic, the Philippine Islands, 
and the Malay Archipelago. Some names extend even to the continent 
of Asia and to the island of Madagascar, on the edge of Africa. That 
most of these plants have been spread through human ageney is evi- 
dent from the fact that they do not grow spontaneously, but need the 
help of man for their propagation. Some of them even, such as the 
banana, plantain, breadfruit, sugar cane, yams, and taro, seldom pro- 
duce seed and are propagated asexually by means of cuttings, off- 
shoots, or tubers. 
In addition to garden products a number of trees bear the same or 
similar names in many groups of islands, such as Barr/ngtonia speciosa, 
Intsia bijuga, and Parité tiliaceum, allof economic value to the natives. 
This is especially striking when we consider that some of these plants 
have the same names on islands so remote that their inhabitants have 
had no intercommunication within historic times. We have some light 
upon the method by which the more important plants were spread in 
the traditions of the Hawaiians, which tell of voyages to distant island 
groups for the purpose of obtaining breadfruit and other useful plants. 
Some of the widely spread species bear one name throughout the 
islands of eastern Polynesia, but are known bya different name in the 
islands of the western Pacific and of the Malay Archipelago. Among 
these are the breadfruit, screw pine, kava pepper, taro, and ironwood 
(Casuarina equisetifolia). Ina few cases a name is applied, not to the 
same plant, but toa plant more or less similar. Thus the name ‘* gabo™ 
is applied in the Philippines to the taro plant (Caladium colocasia); in 
Samoa, Rarotonga, Tahiti, Hawaii, and Easter Island to a species of 
Alocasia (kape, or *ape); and in the Caroline Islands to a yam (kap)— 
all plants having starchy, edible roots. The Philippine name for Alo- 
casia (biga), which becomes ‘‘piga” in Guam, reappears in Fiji as 
“via.” The etymological identity of these words is undoubted, for the 
changes which the consonants undergo follow the same law in many 
other words. 
On the island of Guam several important plants were cultivated by 
the aborigines which were unknown in castern Polynesia— such as rice, 
