XXVIU PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 



seen it, but only so far back as 1859 1 cannot trust myself to 



say more than that the fruit was of a red-brown colour, 5 or 6 inches 

 long, and six-celled, with six well-marked ridges, giving it tlie 

 resemblance traced to the Telfairia. I fenced in the plant to get 

 the fruit matured ; but finding one day half of it eaten away, I 

 secured and bottled the remaining half. In the other two W.- 

 African species, A. triactina and A. Mannii, the fruit is ribbed." 



Mr, J. E. Jackson exhibited a piece of the wood of the copal- 

 tree {Trachylohium Hornemannianum) from Zanzibar riddled 

 by white ants. After ^having been some time in tbe Kew Mu- 

 seum, the living creatures were found in the copal and sent to Mr. 

 r. Smith, who determined them to belong to a species of Termes 

 or white ant, Eutermes lateralis, Walk. Great' interest in tbe 

 specimen presented was expressed by entomologists present, who 

 had never seen a white ant alive, Mr. E. M'Lachlan remai-king tbat 

 a species introduced in this way to the Botanic Grardens at Yienna 

 had become a great pest in the hothouses. 



The following papers were then read, viz. : — 



1. " On the Discovery of Phylica arborea, a tree of Tristan 

 d'Acunha, in Amsterdam Island, in the South-Indian Ocean ; with 

 an enumeration of the Phanerogams and Vascular Cryptogams 

 of that Island and of St. Paul's." By Dr. J. D. Hooker, 

 V.P.L.S. 



Labillardiere stated in 1791 that the islet of Amsterdam (gene- 

 rally confounded with that of St. Paul), lat. 37° 52' S., long. 77" 35' 

 E., in the Indian Ocean, was covered with trees, while that of St. 

 Paul, only fifty miles south of it, is destitute of even a shrub. 

 The nature of this arborescent vegetation was unknown until 

 H.M.S. ' Pearl ' touched at the island in the summer of 1873, 

 when Commodore Goodenough brought off" a specimen of what 

 he states to be the only tree growing in the island, together 

 with a fern in an imperfect state. The former proves to be the 

 I^hylica arborea of Tristan d'Acunha, and the fern a frond of a 

 Lomaria. Amsterdam Island and Tristan d'Acunha are separated 

 by about 5000 miles of ocean, and are nearly in the same latitude ; 

 and Dr. Hooker discusses the various hypotheses which suggest 

 themselves to account for the extraordinary fact of the occurrence 



