THE GREAT OCEAN. 3()S 



On the high island of Pascha (Easter Island), 

 which lies next to this coast, and apart from the 

 others, Forster (besides the cultivated useful plants 

 which have followed the progress of population from 

 the west hitlier) has enumerated only nine species 

 growing wild. 



Forster found in New Caledonia three American 

 plants, viz. Murucuia auraiifia, Ximenesia encelioi- 

 dcSy and IValtlieria Americana. To these we may 

 add some widely-diffused species, chiefly strand- 

 plants. Ijiomoia maritimay Dodona^a viscosa^ Smi- 

 ana maritima, Guilandhia Bunduc, all of which we 

 Ibund, with others, at Radack, Portulaca oleracea, 

 which we found on Romanzofl) &c. : but what do 

 tliese prove against the testimony of the whole 

 vegetable kingdom ? We select, by way of ex- 

 iunple, some distinguished characteristic species. 



The fifteen kinds of Dracaena with which we 

 are acquainted {Dracmna horealis is Convalaria, 

 Pursch.) are scattered from the eastern coast and 

 south point of Africa, over India and the islands 

 of the Indian and the Great Ocean. None of 

 them occur in New Holland ; two of them are 

 found in New Zealand ; and D. TerminaUs is uni- 

 versally spread from India to the eastern islands of 

 the Great Ocean. Twelve kinds of Amomum, 

 (there is besides one in Jamaica peculiar to that 

 island,) and both the Curcuma are spread over the 

 same tract ; and the species which grow on the 

 mountains of the Sandwich islands are likewise 



