THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 235 



The Flora of Owhyee has nothing in common 

 with the nearest continent of the coast of Cali- 

 fornia. The leafless form of the Acacia, the spe- 

 cies of MetrosideroSy Fandamis, Santalum, Aleu- 

 rites, Dracaena, Amomiwi, Curcuma, Tacca, im- 

 press the stamp of its origin and natural rela- 

 tionship. Predominant are the families of Ru- 

 biacece, Contortce, and Urticce, of the latter of 

 which several species, growing wild, are used to 

 prepare different kinds of bast-stuff. * Several 

 arborescent, milky Loheliacece are distinguished. 

 The exterior boundary of the island produces but 

 very few kinds of grass and shrubs. In the inte- 

 rior the Flora is rich, without, however, being 

 comparable with the luxuriant abundance of the 

 Brazilian soil. Only low trees descend to the 

 valley ; among them the Aleurites triloba, with its 

 whitish foliage, forms conspicuous thickets round 

 the skirts and on the declivities of the mountains. 

 You find here and there, in the high mountain 

 defiles, wonderful banana groves, the trunks of 

 which, crowded close together, cause a gloomy 

 night, with their broad, extended foliage. This 

 plant, which, cultivated on the strand, reaches 

 scarcely a height of five feet, attains in these 

 places thrice that height. The acacia, out of the 



* The papcr-mulborry tree, [Broussonctiapapipifera,) is cul- 

 tivated in the Sandwich islands, as in most of the islands of the 

 South Sea for making stuffs. But it is an erroneous supposition 

 that stuff is prepared only from the bark of this tree. 



