vi FLORA OF THE VITIAN ISLANDS. 
diffused over Polynesia); whilst among the plants upon which the Maoris principally 
relied for food and clothing there are only five, the Taro, Sweet Potato, Pumpkin, Sow- 
thistle (Sonchus asper), and the Paper-mulberry, also known in Viti before the arrival 
of Europeans; and these five the Maoris seem to have brought along with them when 
they left their (conjectured) tropical home in the Raratonga group and Humphrey's Island.* 
Europeans became first acquainted with Viti in the year 1643, when Abel Jansen 
Tasman, the celebrated Dutch navigator, discovered it, conferring upon it the name of 
Prince William’s Islands. But two centuries elapsed before this archipelago was more than 
a mere name in geographical science. Captain Cook, who sighted Vatoa (Turtle) Island ; 
Captain Bligh, of the * Bounty,’ who passed twice through parts of this group; and Captain 
. Wilson, of the ‘ Duff,’ whose vessel was nearly lost on the reef off Taviuni, adding scarcely 
any but secondhand and vague information to our stock of knowledge. It was not until 
Viti had been visited by D'Urville, Belcher, and Wilkes that sound scientific facts began to 
' accumulate. 
Captain Sir Edward Belcher visited Viti in 1840 in H.B.M.S. Sulphur. He was 
accompanied by Mr. B. Hinds and Mr. G. Barclay,—the former, surgeon, the latter, 
botanist of the expedition. Their collections were prineipally made near the sea, about 
Rewa, in Viti Levu, and afterwards described by Mr. Bentham in the * London Journal of 
Botany,’ Vol. IL, and the ‘Botany of H.M.S. Sulphur. They were mostly species com- 
mon to other Polynesian islands, and few in number. A much more extensive collec- 
tion was made by the officers who accompanied the United States Exploring Expedition, 
commanded by Commodore Wilkes, — Messrs. Brackenridge, Pickering, and Rich; the 
importance of which has been enhanced by its having been placed in the hands of Pro- 
fessor Asa Gray, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who has made known the greater portion 
of it in his ‘ Botany of the United States Exploring Expedition,’ and the Proceedings of the 
* See Seemann’s ‘Journal of Botany,’ 8vo, London, 1867, p. 215.—The following is a List of Plants 
common to Viti and New Zealand :— 
Oxalis corniculata, Linn. Typha angustifolia, Zinn. 
Dodonea viscosa, Forst. ` Colocasia antiquorum, Schott, var. (cult.). 
Cucurbita Pepo, Linn. (cult.) Dianella intermedia, Endl. 
Hydrocotyle Asiatica, Linn. Paspalum scrobiculatum, Linn. 
Myriogyne minuta, Less. Pteris esculenta, Forst. 
Bidens pilosa, Linn. Schizæa dichotoma, Sw. 
Sonchus asper, Vill. Lycopodium cernuum, Linn. 
Batatas edulis, Chois. (cult.) L. volubile, Forst. 
Pisonia umbellifera, Seem. . Psilotum triquetrum, Sw. 
Broussonnetia papyrifera, Vent. (cult.) 
. 
The Elatine of Viti, which was thought to be Æ. Americana of New Zealand, is E. ambigua, Wight ; 
and one of the Lemnas of Viti, which was thought identical with T. minor of New Zealand, turns out to be 
L. paucicostata, Hegelm. The Cryptogams will have yet to be gone into more closely before any definitive 
comparison ean be made. 
