INSULAR FLORAS. 287 



utilised here in dealing with the literature of the subject. 

 Some years ago Mr. J. T. Arundel delivered a lecture at 

 San Francisco, before the Geographical Society of the 

 Pacific, on the Phcenix Group and other islands of the 

 Pacific, and he has since published it (2) with additional 

 notes. Mr. Arundel writes from actual experience, having 

 visited a large number of the most remote islets of the 

 Pacific and collected samples of their scanty floras, which 

 were determined for him at Kew, where the specimens are 

 preserved. Unfortunately several of the names of the 

 plants in his list have undergone such a transformation as 

 to be almost unrecognisable. 



Besides the Phcenix Group, which was under his personal 

 control, Mr. Arundel visited such out-of-the-way islands as 

 Starbuck, Caroline (not the Caroline Group), Fanning, 

 Maiden, Palmerston and Ducie. Mr. Arundel describes 

 Starbuck and Caroline Islands as examples of two kinds of 

 very small islands common in the Pacific, though not con- 

 fined to it. The former represents those consisting of an 

 unbroken mass which is treeless, and indeed almost devoid 

 of vegetation ; and the latter is a typical coral atoll, con- 

 sisting of a ring of islets encircling a central lagoon, and 

 supporting a relatively luxuriant vegetation. Starbuck is 

 very scantily furnished with vegetation, only about half a 

 dozen species being represented. The principal plants are 

 Lepidium piscidium and Sida fallax ; both of wide range 

 in Polynesia. Caroline Island claims a little more atten- 

 tion, because its history, position, conformation, meteorology, 

 botany and zoology have been very fully worked out and 

 illustrated. In 1883 this island was selected by the Ameri- 

 cans, by the British, and by the French as the most suitable 

 spot for observing the total eclipse of the sun. The Ameri- 

 can party was relatively numerous, and they drew up a 

 somewhat elaborate report (3), illustrated chiefly by prints 

 from photographs taken by the two gentlemen constituting 

 the English party. These illustrations give an excellent 

 idea of the form and vegetation of an atoll, including a 

 bird's eye view, which enables us, better than any description 

 could, to realise its smallness and isolation. Caroline Island 



