APPENDIX. 



ON THE DISPERSAL OF PLANTS BY OCEANIC CURRENTS AND BIRDS. 



Historical. 

 In collecting the material for the reports on the vegetation of the various oceanic islands 

 dealt with in this work, many interesting facts concerning the active part played by the 

 sea itself in the dispersion of plants have come to light ; and, as Mr Moseley devoted special 

 attention to this subject during the voyage of the Challenger, a brief review of the evidence 

 before us appropriately follows here. It is true that Mr Moseley has already recorded ' 

 many of his observations, but they are scattered, and to a certain extent inaccessible, 

 while a considerable collection of drift seeds and seed-vessels made by him about seventy 

 miles north-east of Point D'Urville, New Guinea, has hitherto remained undescribed. 



The diffusion of plants by oceanic currents and tides is by no means a new subject of 

 inquiry, having long ago engaged the attention of some of the foremost writers on plant 

 distribution ; and isolated facts relating thereto are recorded in various books of travel 

 and other publications. Among the earlier notices of the transport of seeds by the sea are 

 those relating to various American kinds thrown up on the western coast of Europe. 

 Sloane 2 gives "an account of four sorts of strange beans frequently cast on shore in the 

 Orkney Isles," which he states were very fresh, being little injured by the sea. Three of 

 them he recognised as having been seen by him growing in Jamaica : they were Entada 

 scandens, Guilandina bonduc, and Mucuna pruriens. That the Entada retains its 

 germinative power after the transport across the Atlantic we have evidence, 3 from the fact 

 that five plants were raised at Kew from seeds collected in the Azores. Again, Robert 

 Brown states 4 that Sir Joseph Banks informed him that he had received the drawing of 

 a plant, which his correspondent assured him was raised from a seed found on the west 

 coast of Ireland, and that the plant was indisputably Guilandina bonduc. Tonning 5 has 

 the following note on fruits stranded in Norway : "Praeter hasce jam memoratas Plantas 

 spontaneas nee omittere possum Fructus nonnullos Americanos, qui ad oras nostras mari- 

 timas quovis fere anno rejiciuntur. Aut per oceanum, quo via ex America patet, aut et 

 interdum, quod tamen rarius, per naufragia ad nostra litora transnatant." The fruits he 



1 Notes by a Naturalist on the Challenger, passim. 



2 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1696, xix. p. 298. 



3 Natural History Review, 1863, p. 196, in note. 



* Tuckey's Narrative of an Expedition to explore the River Zaire, Appendix v., p. 481. 

 5 Amcenitates Academics, vii. p. 477. 



