REPORT ON THE BOTANY OF THE SOUTH-EASTERN MOLUCCAS. 117 



As every one is not familiar with the positions of the above-named islands, they may be 

 roughly indicated, for some of the more remote ones are separated from each other by 

 about fifty degrees of longitude and twenty-five degrees of latitude. Rarotonga, of the 

 Hervey or Cook group, in about 160° W. longitude and 21° 5' S. latitude, is comparatively 

 familiar to readers of travel ; Palmerston lies to the north-west in the same group. Mary, 

 Hull, Gardner, Sydney, Phoenix, and Enderbury are in the Phoenix group, the centre of 

 which is in about 175° W. longitude and 4° S. latitude. Fanning lies in about 4° N. and 

 159° W. ; Starbuck in about 5° S. and 156° W. ; Suwarrow in about 12° 50' S. and 164° 

 W. ; and Ducie in about 25° S. and 125° W. The last named is, with the exception of 

 Easter Island, the nearest to America of the southern islands of Polynesia, from which, 

 however, it is distant more than fifty degrees. 



In addition to the plants in the collection from the South-eastern Moluccas, both 

 Wallace and Moseley mention four or five others which are characteristic of the region, and 

 doubtless in places constitute a considerable proportion of the vegetation. They are : — 

 Bamboo (Bambusa sp.), Rattans (Calamus spp.). Screw-pines (Pandanus spp.), Cocoanut 

 (Cocos nudfera), and the Nipa-palm (Nipa fruticans) ; all of which, except Cocos, are 

 exclusively Old World genera, or only extend to Polynesia. The apparent absence of the 

 Bread-fruit (Artocarpus incisa, Forst.) in Arrou is noteworthy ; inasmuch as Decaisne 1 

 records it from Timor. We assume it is not found in the Arrou Islands, because neither 

 Wallace nor Moseley mentions it. Speaking of the food of the Aruese the former says : 2 — 

 "The Aru men have no regular supply, no staff of life, such as bread, rice, mandioca, 

 maize, or sago, which are the daily food of a large proportion of mankind. They have, 

 however, many sorts of vegetables : yams, plantains, sweet potatoes, and raw sago ; and 

 they chew up vast quantities of sugar-cane, as well as betel-nuts, gambir, and tobacco." 



Many more interesting details of the distribution of littoral plants might be adduced, 

 but sufficient facts are embodied in these notes and in the observations under various 

 species in the following enumeration to give a general idea of the vegetation of tropical 

 sea-coasts, continental as well as insular. It is clear that the present general diffusion of 

 a large proportion of the plants inhabiting the tidal forests and sandy and muddy sea-shores 

 of the tropics is in a great measure due to oceanic currents. The wide colonisation of cul- 

 tivated tropical plants is also easily accounted for, as well as that of the weeds commonly 

 associated with them ; but, eliminating the littoral, the naturalised cultivated plants, and 

 their concomitant weeds from a flora, there remains an endemic element in the composition 

 of the vegetation of many oceanic islands presenting problems difficult of solution, espe- 

 cially if their insularity has always been what it is now ; but in the flora of the South- 

 eastern Moluccas we have, so far as the present collections are concerned, no generic 

 endemic element. 



1 Herbarii Timorensis Descriptio, p. 1C9. 2 Malay Archipelago, ii. p. 220. 



