422 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC CHAP, 



stranded on the beaches two-fifths were empty, two-fifths displayed 

 a rotten seed, and one-fifth had sound seeds. Of those picked up 

 at sea all were empty. These fruits, unlike many others in the 

 drift of the Fijian rivers, do not germinate afloat. They soon lose 

 in the water their outer, fleshy, non-buoyant coat ; whilst the inner 

 fibrous coat, to which the floating power of the fruit is due, the 

 seed having no buoyancy, is not water-tight, and moisture soon 

 enters and leads to the decay of the seed. In order to test their 

 floating power, I placed in sea-water ten mature fruits. Five of 

 them floated after forty-five days, having then lost most of the 

 outer, fleshy coat. Two were afloat after sixty days, but their seeds 

 were rotting. One fruit that sank after five weeks had a sound 

 seed. Most of them were sown out afterwards in a place where 

 the trees were thriving, but none germinated, and of two or three 

 examined all had a decaying seed. The empty fruits may float a 

 long time after the decay of the seed. Forty days would probably 

 be the extreme limit for the flotation in sea-water of a fruit with a 

 seemingly sound seed, though a very small proportion would reach 

 this limit, and I much doubt whether such a fruit would germinate 

 afterwards. 



I, therefore, inferred that currents are only available for the local 

 dispersion of the fruits of Inocarpus edulis. It is to man that the 

 tree owes its existence in Tahiti and other groups of the open 

 Pacific ; and it is to be concluded that the occurrence of this tree 

 on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean marks an early Malayan 

 occupation of the island. 



GYROCARPUS JACQUINI 



The cosmopolitan distribution of this seemingly useless tree, 

 growing, as Hemsley remarks, in maritime districts throughout the 

 tropics, in America, Australia, Asia, and Africa, presents one of 

 the puzzles of plant-distribution. It is by no means universally 

 spread in the Pacific islands, and I find reference to it only in Fiji 

 and Tahiti. Seemann says that in Fiji it is common on the 

 beaches of Taviuni and other islands. I found it to be a rare 

 coast tree on Vanua Levu. It does not seem to have been recorded 

 by the botanists of the i8th century in the Pacific. It, however, 

 has evidently been long established there. Nadeaud does not 

 speak of its littoral station in Tahiti, and says that it grows best in 

 the regions of the interior up to elevations of 2,000 feet, where it 



