148 THE PLANT WORLD 



fruit with hooked spines, which stick to the clothing of the passer-by — 

 which accounts for their distribution along the paths and road-sides. 

 They could very easily have been brought here on the feathers of birds. 



Among the common weeds : Asclepias curassavica, a coarse, ill-smell- 

 ing, hispid labiate called "miimutu," with blue flowers and rough cor- 

 date leaves, growing to a height of 9 or 10 feet ; a trifoliate bean-like 

 plant called " chochomeko," with small, inconspicuous flowers and flat 

 pods containing seeds like small Lima beans ; bushes of the introduced 

 Cestrum, which bears the dark-colored berries eaten by fruit-pigeons ; 

 thickets of "lemoncito," evidently formed from old hedges; large areas 

 of guava-bushes growing breast high. Climbing along the bushes blue- 

 flowered morning-glories called "fofgu," wild yams {Dioscorea spinosa), 

 with sharp branching, wiry spines at the base of the stem, protecting the 

 roots ; and a trifoliate twining vine with the habit of a clematis, called 

 " akankan lalatun." In an open place Cassia tora, called by the natives 

 " mumutun palaoan," or "female miimutu " ; high bushes of sapan 

 wood (^Caesalpinia sappaii), here called "sibukao," the heart, wood, and 

 roots of which yield a fine dye — plants evidently spread from ancient 

 boundary-hedges ; flowers growing in racemes, yellow, with woolly 

 stamens, followed by short, broad, flat pods ; leaves compound-pinnate, 

 with spines on rachis at the base of the leaflets, also stipulary spines ; 

 trees thorny, one with a rat's nest in its branches. 



On top of mesa, not far from the river, is an open place which had 

 once been cultivated. Earth red, colored from oxide of iron in disinte- 

 grate coral ; substratum hard coral, scarcely diff"erent from that on the 

 reef; large patches of indigo growing wild. Cassia occidentalism called 

 " mumutun sable," or " sword-weed," by the natives, from the shape of 

 its pods ; escaped cypress morning-glory i^Quamoclit quavioclit) , covered 

 with intense bright red star-like flowers. In places where there was no 

 grass the ground covered with a carpet of a small creeping trifoliate 

 plant, Meiboniia triflora, incorrectly called " agsom " or " apson " by the 

 natives (sour) from its resemblance to the trifoliate Oxalis cornictdata. 



Approaching the edge of the plateau I found myself on the edge of 

 the great swamp or " cienaga " on the side opposite Agaiia. Through 

 this swamp the river, rising in the great spring called Matan-hanom, 

 makes its way to the sea through a dense growth of reeds and other 

 marsh plants. Fine view across the swamp ; reeds like a canefield, with 

 here and there groups of coconuts rising like islands or projecting like 

 capes. One or two Areca palms, from which the natives get their betel 

 nuts, growing on the edge, with slender, ringed trunks, plumy pinnate 

 leaves forming a rank-looking crest, below which the fruit hangs in 

 clusters. Among the reeds tufts of the coarse swamp-fern Chry sodium 

 aureuni, with pinnated fronds fertile at the tips ; a grass called "achugau, ' ' 



