REPORT ON THE BOTANY OF TIIE SOUTH-EASTERN MOLUCCAS. 147 



Cynometra ramiflora, Linn. 



Cynometra ramiflora, Linn.; Miq., Fl. Ind. Bat, i. 1, p. 78; Bcnth., EL Austr., ii. p. 29G ; Hook, f., 

 Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 2G7. 



Timor Laut. — North Australia to the Philippines, the Malayan and Western Peninsulas 

 of India, and in Ceylon. The genus numbers about twenty species, distributed over the 

 tropical regions of both hemispheres ; two species inhabit the Fiji and Tongan Islands. 



Mimose^e. 

 Entada scandens, Benth. 



Entada scaiidem, Benth., Fl. Austr., ii. p. 298; Seem., Fl. Vit., p. 71 ; Hook, f., Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 



287 ; Oliver, FL Trop. Afr., ii. p. 325. 

 Entada pur ■scetha, DC. ; Miq., Fl. Ind. Bat., i. 1, p. 45. 

 Faba marina seu parang, Rumph., Herb. Amboin., v. p. 5, t. 4. 



Although we have not actually seen specimens of this from any of the islands within 

 our limits, we have evidence of its existence, and being a very remarkable plant it 

 deserves special mention. It is a gigantic climber, bearing the largest seed-vessel of any 

 member of the order to which it belongs, it often attaining a length of three to four, and 

 sometimes six to eight feet, with a breadth of four or five inches ; and the seeds are some- 

 times as much as two inches in diameter. 



This plant has a very wide range in the tropics of both hemispheres, that is, if the 

 eastern and western specimens be correctly referred to one species, which is not beyond 

 doubt. It is found in North Australia, and northward to the Marianne Islands, and the 

 north of India, growing apparently equally as well on the sea-shore as on the Himalaya 

 Mountains. Seemann (Kittlitz, Views of the Vegetation of the Pacific, p. 22) states that 

 this is the only real climbing plant in the Mangrove swamps of the Pacific Islands, where, 

 in the Fijis, for instance, he had seen festoons of it several hundred yards long. As already 

 mentioned in this Report, Part II., p. 80, the seeds are conveyed enormous distances by 

 oceanic currents without losing their vitality. This fact would account for its present 

 wide distribution. Many other members of this order especially, included in this list, 

 doubtless owe their wide dispersion to the same cause. 



Dichrostachys nutans, Benth. 



Dichrostachys nutans, Benth. in Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond., xxx. p. 382 ; Oliver, Fl. Trop. Afr., ii. p. 33.3. 

 Dichrostachys cinerea, Miq., Fl. Ind. Bat.,i. 1, p. 48, quoad plantam Javanicam,flde Benth., Fl. Austr., 

 ii. p. 299. 

 Moa ; Wettee. — North Australia and some of the islands of the Indian Archipelago, 

 and common throughout Tropical Africa. This species is very closely allied to Dichro- 

 stachys cinerea, Wight and Arnott, a very common one in Tropical Asia. The genus is 

 exclusively Old World. 



