148 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



therefore remains on the surface. The region has a peculiar aspect, 

 which is at once recognized in ascending the mountains. The only 

 forest-tree, the ohia lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha) becomes stunted; 

 the trunks are covered with a thick coating of Mosses and Hepaticee, 

 which retains the moisture so as to render everything dripping wet; 

 and not more than a dozen species of flowering plants and ferns occur 

 in the whole. Above this, on the mountains of West Maui and Kauai, 

 there is an open tract, where the lehua, one of the largest forest-trees, 

 at an elevation of 2,000 feet, has become dwarfed, a foot or two high, 

 in spreading clumps, but still flowering luxuriantly. In the midst of 

 such clumps are found the violets peculiar to these regions, and in the 

 neighboring tussocks of sedge (an Oreobohis) are found the few other 

 plants, which occur here and nowhere else, to the number of eight or 

 nine; also Drosera longifolia, thousands of miles from its next nearest 

 known habitat. 



The lower parts of the Kaala mountains, and the lower parts of the 

 leeward flank of Kauai, have many characteristics in common, both 

 being somewhat deprived of moisture by high land to the windward. 



By far the greater portion of the soil has been formed by disinte- 

 gration of the lava ; the thin sandy soil of those parts which consist of 

 raised coral reefs (as some of the shore regions of Oahu), and that 

 which is formed by the drifting inland of the calcareous beach sands, 

 support a few species which are not found elsewhere. 



It is the purpose of this enumeration to give as complete a list as 

 possible of the plants indigenous to the group, inserting also the prob- 

 ably introduced plants which have become thoroughly naturalized. 

 Those which are without doubt indigenous have been left unmarked. 

 Those which are probably of aboriginal introduction are marked with 

 an asterisk (*) ; the few which are in all probability recent introduc- 

 tions, with a dagger (f). 



The specimens which have been distributed, under numbers, from 

 the collection of Mr. Brigham and myself, are referred to by the ini- 

 tials M. & B. The numbers of Remy's plants are cited, as far a3 

 they have been met with in the Gray Herbarium. Hillebrand's col- 

 lection is not here represented fully enough to make it worth while or- 

 dinarily to cite his numbers. 



