344 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC CHAP. 



that the Kaka Parrot (Nestor meridionalis) of New Zealand is 

 said to feed largely on the scarlet blossoms and nectar of 

 Metrosideros robusta (Evans' Birds, p. 374). 



The seeds of Metrosideros polymorpha might no doubt be 

 carried by winds from one mountain-top to another and across 

 narrow straits, but only whilst adherent to a bat or a bird could 

 they be carried across a wide tract of ocean. Speaking of the 

 genera Metrosideros and Lobelia in connection with their 

 occurrence in the Kermadec Islands, Sir J. Hooker long ago 

 referred to their minute seeds as not adapted for transport across 

 oceans unless their minuteness and number fitted them for it (Journ. 

 Linn. Soc., i. 127). The point that is raised here for these genera 

 in the Kermadec Group can be raised for the same two genera in 

 Hawaii and for a multitude of other small-seeded genera in those 

 islands. 



ALYXIA (Apocynaceae). 



This genus of climbing or straggling shrubs tells its own story 

 of the widely dispersed Indo-Malayan genera in the Pacific islands. 

 Containing about forty known species, it is distributed over the 

 tropical regions from Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands east- 

 ward to the Paumotu Group and Pitcairn Island in mid-Pacific, 

 and has its focus in the area comprised by Malaya, Australia, and 

 New Caledonia. In the Index Kewensis about eight species are 

 assigned to New Caledonia, seven to Australia, and seven to 

 Malaya. One species, Alyxia stellata, ranges over nearly the 

 whole of the area of the genus from tropical Asia, through 

 Malaya, across the South Pacific to Tahiti. It will be for the 

 future investigator to determine how far the present distribution of 

 the genus can be connected with one or two widely-ranging poly- 

 morphous species. The data at my disposal seem to show that in 

 the open Pacific, at all events, the history of the genus has gone a 

 step beyond this stage. 



Of the seven or eight species recorded from the Pacific islands 

 east of New Caledonia, only two or three seem to be now 

 recognised as restricted to particular groups, namely, one in Hawaii 

 (Schumann), one in Fiji, and one in Rarotonga. The other species 

 indirectly connect together all the groups, although no single 

 species occurs over the whole region. Thus the Hawaiian species, 

 Alyxia olivaeformis (Gaud.) has in recent years been found in 

 Upolu, in the Samoan Group, by Dr. Reinecke, an exceedingly 

 interesting though unusual specific link between these two 



