INSULAR FLORAS. 29 



Polynesia proper. 1 The illustrations are particularly 

 useful, and it also contains an enumeration of all the 

 plants known to the author from the whole of Polynesia, 

 with the general distribution of each species. This is 

 doubtless very nearly complete, so far as the French 

 islands are concerned, yet it is evident that the author 

 was not well acquainted with the literature of recent dis- 

 coveries in Central and Western Polynesia. Still, as the 

 only consolidation of the more important works, it is 

 most valuable. The plates, too, are admirable, and a 

 great acquisition to previously existing published delinea- 

 tions of Polynesian types. One cannot but regret, however, 

 that the drawings of the Forsters, Solander, Parkinson, and 

 other members of Cook's voyages at the British Museum 

 were never published. 



The French islands, of which the plants are described 

 in the former work, are the Society, Marquesas, Pomotou 

 or Low, the Southern or Tubuai, and Wallis Islands — the 

 last being far west of the others, to the north of, or rather 

 in, the Tonga group. Of these groups, the Society Islands 

 are the most important, and Tahiti or Otaheite is the 

 largest and loftiest island of the group, rising to nearly 

 7000 feet in its highest part, and it is in this group and 

 island that a very large majority of the endemic forms 

 are concentrated. Out of a total of 588 vascular plants, 

 including a considerable number of undoubtedly introduced 

 species, the author records 161 as peculiar to French 

 Polynesia, and about 100 as peculiar to the Society 

 Islands. But several of the most striking types, hitherto 

 regarded as Tahitan, have recently been discovered in 

 Western Polynesia, an example of which is cited below. 

 The cause of this misconception concerning the distribu- 

 tion of certain Polynesian types, is the extreme rarity of 

 individuals of many species, even in some known instances 

 where they inhabit distant islands. But most of the 

 endemic species of the Society Islands and the Sandwich 



1 Illustrationes Florce Insularum Maris Pacifici, E. Drake del 

 Castillo, 1886-1892, 4to, 458 pages and 50 plates. 



