284 ROUND THE YEAR 



The winds which blow steadily over great expanses 

 of sea set up currents, which often carry floating 

 objects to great distances. Among these are many 

 well-known drift-fruits, such as the Coco-de-mer (the 

 Lodoicea of the Seychelles), the Sea-apples or Sea- 

 cocoa-nuts of the West Indies (fruits of the Bussu 

 palm of Trinidad and Brazil), and the Sea-beans 

 (Entada scandens) which are cast ashore in all parts of 

 the world. Linnaeus long ago noted that tropical 

 fruits and seeds, in some cases capable of germination, 

 were frequently stranded on the coast of Norway. 

 One drift-fruit, often cast ashore in the West Indies 

 and elsewhere, is particularly interesting, first because 

 it exhibits the same structural peculiarities which fit 

 the Alder nuts for dispersal by water, and secondly 

 because, though it is often cast up on the sea-shore, 

 its native country and the tree which yielded it were 

 only discovered after three centuries of inquiry. In 

 Nature for Nov. 21, 1895, I find an article entitled " A 

 Jamaica Drift-fruit," in which Mr. D. Morris, Assist- 

 ant-director of the Kew Gardens, clears up this 

 ancient mystery. 



The fruit in question was first described and figured 

 by Clusius in 1605. After that it was repeatedly 

 discovered as a waif upon tropical shores, and once 

 (in 1887) m Bigborough Bay in the south of England. 

 From the large collections preserved at Kew, Mr. 

 Hillier was at length enabled to infer that the fruit 

 was probably referable to the small order of 

 Humiriaceae, which contains trees or shrubs mostly 

 with balsamic juice, entirely confined to tropical 

 America, so far as was then known. This led to 



