14 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC CHAR 



After excluding some introduced plants there remain some ninety 

 species belonging to about sixty genera, and of these quite 75 per 

 cent, sank at once or in a few days. I may add that all kinds of 

 fruits are here represented, the capsule, the achene, the coccus, the 

 berry, the drupe, &c. Of the buoyant residue few possess seeds or 

 fruits that will float uninjured for any length of time. Not many 

 gave indications directly in opposition to the principle that whilst 

 the seeds or fruits of shore-plants generally float, those of inland 

 plants usually sink, since as pointed out in Note 5 most of the 

 difficulties are removed during the subsequent developments of the 

 principle discussed in the later pages of this work or are to be 

 explained on other grounds stated in the note. 



We pass now from Fiji as typical in its flora of the Western 

 Pacific to Tahiti as representing in its flora the more strictly 

 oceanic groups of Eastern Polynesia. In the Tahitian region, 

 which is taken as including in a general sense the Society Islands, 

 the Marquesas, and the Paumotus, there are only between 50 and 

 60 littoral plants, excluding the occasional additions from the 

 inland flora. As indicated by the letter T preceding the species 

 in the list of Fijian shore plants, nearly all are to be found in Fiji, 

 and the few not yet recorded from that group, which I have 

 referred to in the remarks following the list, will probably be found 

 there by some subsequent investigator. In Tahiti also between 

 75 and 80 per cent, of the strand plants have seeds or seed- 

 vessels that float for months ; and here also Leguminosae 

 predominate, forming about 30 per cent, of the total. A con- 

 spicuous negative feature in the Tahitian strand-flora is concerned 

 with the absence of the mangroves and their numerous associated 

 plants, which together form the mangrove formation in Fiji. This 

 remarkable character in the distribution of shore plants in the 

 Pacific is discussed in Chapter VI. 



Not having visited Tahiti, I can only deal inferentially with the 

 inland plants, as in the case of the strand-flora. Here also the 

 plants are in the mass Fijian in a generic and often in a specific 

 sense, and there is no reason to believe that the principle involving 

 the non-buoyancy of the seeds or fruits of inland plants does not 

 as a rule apply to Tahiti as well as to Fiji. 



The Hawaiian Islands, standing alone in the North Pacific, 

 form a floral region in themselves, a region that is the equivalent 

 not of one group in the South Pacific, such as that of Fiji or of 

 Tahiti, but of the whole area comprising all the groups extending 

 from Fiji to the Paumotu Archipelago. Lying as it does mainly 



