RErOKT ON THE BOTANY OF THE SOUTH-EASTERN MOLUCCAS. HO 



Dadass, which is planted by the Malays with the pepper- vine, the latter entwining round its trunk, 

 and supporting itself by the prickles on its stem ; the soap-tree, tho castor-oil plant, trunks of the 

 sago-palm, and various kinds of seeds unknown to the Malays settled on the islands. These are all 

 supposed to have been driven by the north-west monsoon to the coast of Australia, and thence to 

 these islands by the south-east trade-wind. Large masses of Java teak and yellow wood have also 

 been found, besides immense trees of red and white cedar, and the blue gumwood of Australia, in a 

 perfectly sound condition. All the hardy seeds, such as creepers, retain their germinating power, 

 but the softer kinds, among which is the mangostin, are destroyed in tho passage. Fishing-canoes, 

 apparently from Java, have at times been washed on shore.' It is interesting thus to discover how 

 numerous the seeds are, which, coming from several countries, are drifted over the wide ocean. 

 Professor Henslow tells me he believes that nearly all the plants which I brought from these islands 

 are common littoral species in the East Indian Archipelago. 1 From the direction, however, of the 

 winds and currents, it seems scarcely possible that they could have come here in a direct line. If, 

 as suggested with much probability by Mr Keating, they were first carried towards the coast of 

 Australia, and thence drifted back together with the productions of that country, the seeds before 

 (Terminating must have travelled between 1800 and 2100 miles. 



" Chamisso, 2 when describing the Radack Archipelago, situated in the western part of the Pacific, 

 states that ' the sea brings to these islands the seeds and fruits of many trees, most of which have 

 yet not grown here. The greater part of these seeds appear to have not yet lost the capability of 

 growing.' It is also said that palms and bamboos from somewhere in the torrid zone, and trunks of 

 northern firs, are washed on shore. These firs must have come from an immense distance. These 

 facts are highly interesting. It cannot be doubted that if there were land-birds to pick up the seeds 

 when first cast on shore, and a soil better adapted for their growth than the loose blocks of coral, that the 

 most isolated of the lagoon islands would in time possess a far more abundant flora than they now have." 



Another example of littoral vegetation in the Indian Ocean is afforded by a small 

 collection in the Kew Herbarium from Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands, recently con- 

 tributed by A. Hume, Esq., R.N. 



List of Plants from Diego Garcia, Chagos Islands. 



Vernonia cinerea, Less. 

 Asclepias curassavica, Linn. 

 Stri<ja hirsuta, Lour. 

 Stachytarpheta indica, VahL 

 Achyranthes velutina, II. et A. 

 Iiicina lavis, Linn. 

 Euphorbia pilidifi ra, Linn. 

 PhyUatvthus niruri, Linn. ? 



Porfodaca quadrifida, Linn. 

 Sida iliffusa, H. B. et K. 

 Triumfetta procumbem, Forst. 

 Triphasia trifoliata, DC. 

 Suriana maritima, Linn. 

 Barringtonia speciosa, Linn. 

 Passiflora suberosa, Linn. 

 <■'/!■ ftarda speciosa, Linn. 



The Chagos Islands are in nearly the same latitude as the Seychelles, but about eighteen 

 degrees to the eastward of them. Whether, associated with the common plants in the 

 above list, there is an endemic element as in Rodriguez and in the granitic Seychelles, is 

 not known. The remarkable feature in the vegetation of the Seychelles is the number of 

 endemic palms. Although palms exist in other oceanic islands, nowhere else in the world, 



1 A comparison with our data fully corroborates this. — W. B. H. - Kotzebue's First Voyage, iii. p. 155. 



