24 6 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



Islands ; see note thereon, ante, p. 117. De Canclolle, however, says 1 that the Bread-fruit 

 Tree is evidently a native of Java, Amboina, and the neighbouring islands ; but it has been 

 cultivated from such remote times that its exact history cannot be ascertained. This view 

 is strengthened by the fact that the Archipelago is the home of the majority of the species 

 of Artocarpus, very few reaching Continental Asia, and none except the cultivated ones, 

 Artocarpus incisa and Artocarpus integrifolia. Further, tradition suggests a period when 

 the Bread-fruit Tree did not exist in Tahiti. Nadeaud states that the climatic conditions 

 of the interior of this island are unfavourable to it, and the varieties growing there wild 

 or cultivated produce no seed, whereas in Tongatabu perfect seeds are always developed. 

 Seemann says that it is cultivated throughout the Fiji Islands, and is also in some parts to 

 all appearances wild. On the other hand, Jouan remarks that if it be not indigenous in the 

 Marquesas, the very least trouble is taken in its cultivation, and he never saw any save 

 the common variety there. He also adds that on his expedition d'Entrecasteaux carried 

 300 plants from Tongatabu to Java, and asks whether it previously existed in the latter 

 island ; and he interprets the Tahitian traditions as indicating a spontaneous origin of the 

 Bread-fruit Tree in the Society Islands. 



Gironniera celtidifolia, Gaud. 



Gfironniera celtidifolia, Gaud. ; Miq., Fl. Ind. Bat., i. 2, p. 223; Seem., Fl. Vit., p. 236 ; Weddell in 

 DC. Prodr., xvii. p. 207. 



Admiralty Islands. — Philippines and Fiji Islands, and Weddell describes a form, 

 which he regards as a variety of this, from St. George [New Georgia T] in the Solomon 

 Archipelago. There are also specimens in the Kew Herbarium of the same or a closely 

 allied species from Samoa. Gironniera is a small genus confined to Ceylon, the Malay 

 Peninsula and Archipelago, Southern China, and the Pacific Islands. 



Pipturus argenteus, Wedd. 



Pipturus argenteus, Wedd. ; Lentil., Fl. Austr., vi. p. 185. 



Pipturus propinquus, Wedd., Monogr., p. 447, t. 15; Seem., Fl. Vit., p. 244; Miq., Fl. Ind. Bat., 



i. 2, p. 268. 

 Urtica argentea, Forst., Fl. Ins. Austr. Prodr., p. 65. 



Admiralty Islands. — Malayan Archipelago, North-eastern Australia, and in Polynesia 

 from the New Hebrides and Friendly to the Fiji and Marianne Islands. 



Elatostema integrifolium, Wedd. 



Elatostema integrifolium, Wedd. in DC. Prodr., xvi. 1, p. 179. 

 Elatostema sesquifolium, Hassk. ; Miq., Fl. Ind. Bat., i. 2, p. 243. 



Admiralty Islands. — Widely dispersed in India, and extending through the Archi- 

 pelago. Elatostema is a genus of about fifty species, confined to the Old World, and chiefly 

 to Asia and Africa. 



1 Origine des Plantcs Cultivees, p. 239. 



