xxviii INOCARPUS EDULIS 421 



INOCARPUS EDULIS (THE TAHITIAN CHESTNUT) 



Like Aleurites moluccana this tree presents a prima facie case 

 for dispersal by currents. As the result of inquiries in this 

 direction I have formed the opinion, however, that it has been 

 mainly distributed by man. Though occurring in all the South 

 Pacific groups, as far east as Tahiti and the Marquesas, it does not 

 occur in Hawaii. With its home in Malaya it possesses a range 

 closely resembling that of the breadfruit tree ; and yet, although 

 its fruits are often a common article of food in Polynesia, it requires 

 no cultivation, and reproduces itself so abundantly in favourable 

 situations that, as Dr. Seemann observes, only the dense shade 

 of the parents checks the occupation by the seedlings of all the 

 adjacent ground. It possesses in the Pacific two sets of names, 

 neither of which I have been able to identify with any Malayan 

 names, and both occur over much of the region. Thus the 

 Fijian " Ivi " and the Samoan and Tongan " Ifi " are repre- 

 sented by " li " in Rarotonga, " Ihi " in Tahiti and the Marquesas, 

 " Hi " in Ualan in the Carolines, " Ifi " in Futuna in the New 

 Hebrides, and " If" in a New Guinea dialect, Then we have the 

 Tahitian " Mape," the " Marap " of Ponape in the Carolines, and 

 the " Mamape " of Fate in the New Hebrides, besides other forms 

 found in Melanesia. 



In the South Pacific islands, as in Fiji, Samoa, Rarotonga, and 

 in the Tahitian group, it flourishes in low, moist localities at and 

 near the coast, by the side of streams and estuaries, and in the rich 

 soil of the lower valleys. In the Rewa delta in Fiji it is especially 

 abundant, often bordering the creeks in the mangrove swamps, and 

 occupying stations that are under water when the river is in flood. 

 It may extend inland in the various groups, but it is in the low- 

 lying, moist, coast regions that it mostly thrives ; and in Fiji it 

 presented itself to me as essentially a tree of the estuaries, a station 

 strongly suggestive of dispersal by currents. Schimper, it may be 

 remarked, includes it amongst the shore vegetation of the Indian 

 Archipelago. 



When in Fiji I paid especial attention to the dispersal by 

 currents of these large fruits, the agency of birds being, of course, 

 negatived by their size. They are to be commonly observed 

 floating in the rivers when in flood, as well as at sea between the 

 islands, and stranded on the beaches. Of those found afloat in the 

 Rewa River not more than a fourth had a sound seed. Of those 



