3 o8 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC CHAP. 



Tahiti, but possess in the first group only endemic species, whilst 

 in the other two regions they may include species both confined to 

 and occurring outside the respective groups. They represent an 

 age of wide dispersal over the Pacific, an age which for Hawaii 

 has long since passed away, since all the genera have been discon- 

 nected from the outer world, whilst in the groups of the South 

 Pacific they as a rule in each case remain in touch through some of 

 the species with the groups around. 



The problem of plant-distribution in the Pacific thus assumes a 

 different aspect in an age which we term Malayan or Indo- 

 Malayan, since the bulk of the plants are thence derived. The 

 earliest age of the Coniferae was, as we have seen in the previous 

 chapter, restricted to the region of the Western Pacific. The 

 following age of the Compositae and the Lobeliaceae was concerned 

 with the regions of Tahiti and Hawaii. Now, however, in the 

 Malayan era, the whole of the tropical Pacific is concerned. Yet, 

 although we shall still regard, for purposes of convenience, the 

 groups of Fiji, Tahiti, and Hawaii as the three foci of plant- 

 distribution, it will soon become apparent that in future there will 

 be in reality only two regions to deal with, the Hawaiian in 

 the North Pacific, and the whole region of the South Pacific 

 extending from Fiji to Tahiti and as far east as the islands 

 stretch. It will be also seen that in making our comparison 

 we shall sometimes have to regard each of the principal Hawaiian 

 islands as the equivalent as a plant-centre of an entire archipelago 

 of the South Pacific. 



The genera that are here selected to represent this epoch 

 of wide dispersion are very characteristic of the floras of the 

 Pacific islands. Genera like Pittosporum, Gardenia, Psychotria, 

 Cyrtandra, Freycinetia, and others one meets with everywhere in 

 the larger islands, and it should be observed that they are predomi- 

 nantly Old World, and more especially Malayan, in their origin, 

 not a single purely American genus, unless we except the decadent 

 genus of fan-palms, Pritchardia, occurring among them. Here we 

 notice [what we shall see is especially typical of the era of the non- 

 endemic genera, excepting those of the lofty uplands of Hawaii] 

 that the frugivorous bird has been the principal agent in dispersing 

 the plants, quite two-thirds of the total genera possessing drupes 

 or berries that would attract such birds. The transport of seeds 

 or seedvessels in birds' plumage, which was a conspicuous feature 

 in the case of the mountain-flora of Hawaii, is not a feature of this 

 age of wide dispersal of tropical plants over the Pacific. 



