Natural History of Hawaii. 



SECTION THREE 



FLORA OF THE GBOUP. 



CHAPTER XV. 



PLANT LIFE OF THE SEA-SHORE AND LOWLANDS. 



The plant life of these highly isolated islands has always been a sub.ieet 

 of absorbing interest, and much has been done by botanists since the time of 

 Cook's memorable voyages towards putting a knowledge of the flora into an 

 orderly and systematic form. For those who contemplate a serious study of the 

 vegetation of the islands, the important volume of Dr. Hillebrand is, of course, 

 an essential, but for those \vho wish merely to know something of the more useful, 

 familiar or conspicuous plants, without going into the sub.jeet exhaustively, a 

 brief sunnnary of the more salient features may here si;ffice. 



The Island Flora. 



We have elsewhere had occasion to refer to Hawaii-uei as being so far removed 

 from the mainland of America and the islands of Polynesia that it is indeed 

 difficult to account for the presence of so varied and extensive a fauna and flora. 

 Nevertheless there is no very tangible geologic evidence, aside from the evidence 

 of a deep subsidence, to furnish ground for a belief that the islands in past 

 geologic time have been more closely connected with other lands than they are at 

 present. We therefore have here, if anywhere in the world, a trulj' virgin 

 flora — one of great tropical beauty and surpassing interest to students as well 

 as to travelers and holiday seekers who ramble off into the mountains and fields 

 or b>' the sea-shore in search of change from the common place of the city. 



Those who have studied the matter assure us that the nearest land in the Pa- 

 cific that can be seriously considered as providing stepping stones that may have 

 been instrumental in giving Haw'aii her original stock of plants are the Marqiiesas. 

 But since those islands, like all other lands and islands, are more than two thou- 

 sand miles distant and are separated from the Hawaiian group by the abysmal 

 depths of the ocean on all sides, the striking physical isolation of the group from 

 adjacent land areas is apparent. Aside from the intereoni'se that the Hawaiians 

 have had with the groups of islands to the south, an intercoui'se that undoubtedly 

 resulted in the bringing to the group of all of their more important economic 

 plants as elsewhere stated, the flora of the islands once established, seems to have 

 developed naturally and continuously for a very long period of time. The 

 development seems to have been continued to the present time without the com- 

 plications that elsewhere result from geologic changes, or other disturbing fac- 

 tors either from within or without. 



