602 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC 



NOTE 77 (page 21) 

 ON THE MODE OF DISPERSAL OF KLEINHOVIA HOSPITA 



This small tree has a very wide distribution in the tropics, ranging from 

 East Africa and the Mascarene Islands through India, South-eastern Asia, 

 Malaya, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands to Fiji and Tahiti. It is a 

 plant that grows in inland open woods as well as amongst the littoral trees 

 on the beach ; and it is always doubtful (in Malaya, Fiji, and Samoa) 

 whether to regard it as a shore plant or as an inland plant, different 

 authors varying on this point. In Vanua Levu I formed the opinion that 

 it is only an intruder amongst the littoral vegetation. In accounting for 

 its distribution we have to choose between man, the bird, and the cur- 

 rent. Though it may sometimes be noticed in native plantations, as I 

 observed in the Solomon Islands, the tree has no special use ; and the 

 Solomon Island natives themselves indicated to me that the parrots 

 that fed on the fruits of the tree aided in distributing the plant. The 

 buoyant behaviour of the seeds, which are freed by the dehiscence of the 

 bladder-capsules on the tree, is not constant. Whilst in the case of the 

 seeds of littoral trees in Fiji I found that 30 per cent, floated after ten 

 weeks, Prof. Schimper ascertained in the case (seemingly) of Malayan 

 seeds that they sank at once. The seed-structure connected with the 

 buoyancy is, as shown on page 105, accidental in character, and reference 

 is made on page 20 to other plants of doubtful littoral reputation, in which 

 the buoyant qualities are variable. The occasional buoyancy of its seeds 

 will only, as I think, explain its occasional station at the coast ; and I 

 agree with Prof. Schimper (p. 156) when he attributes its wide distribution 

 to birds, the seeds being hard, crustaceous, and about three millimetres 

 across. 



NOTE 78 (page 436) 



ON THE "SEA": AN UNIDENTIFIED WILD FRUIT-TREE IN FIJI 



This is a fair-sized forest tree common in places in the lower forests. 

 I have never been able to identify it ; but a " putamen " which was sent to 

 the Kew Museum was named Spondias with a query. It is to be hoped 

 its true botanical name will be discovered by one of my successors. See- 

 mann places it amongst the "desiderata" concerning which further informa- 

 tion is needed. The fruit is a drupe 2 to 2\ inches long possessing a 

 pleasant fruity odour and inclosing a hard two-celled stone about if inch 

 long, one cell containing a large fleshy seed covered with tawny hair, the 

 other filled with the hair only and containing no seed. The Fijians say 

 that these fruits, large as they are, are swallowed by the fruit-pigeons, the 

 stones being found in their gullet. The leaves are distichous, alternate, 

 lanceolate, eight or nine inches long, glabrous and dark green above, and 

 covered below with a whitish woolly matted tomentum, The empty stones 

 are not uncommon in the stranded beach-drift. 



