BOTANY. 387 



fig-leaf. The flowers grow in clusters ; are pale-yellow., 

 small and bell-shaped, and have a pleasant but feeble 

 odour. The fruit is smooth, rather more oval than 

 globular, and about the size of a small melon ; it also 

 resembles the latter fruit in its colour and structure, 

 and its central cavity is filled with many small oval and 

 gray seeds, enveloped in a slimy fluid. It has a sweet 

 taste ; but is not generally admired by Europeans, and 

 is seldom eaten by the natives. 



The Marquesan name for the plant is m ; and the 

 Raiateans sometimes call it m papa, or white-man's vi y 

 from a resemblance they detect between the fruit it 

 bears, and that of the indigenous vi-tree ; (Spondias 

 dulcis ;) though their more usual name for the species 

 is mnita ; and they recognise its dioecious character, by 

 calling the male tree ninita tane, and the female ninita 

 vahine, or husband and wife Papaw. 



All parts of the tree are considered efficacious as an 

 external application for the cure of ring- worm. 



DICECIA. OCTANDRIA. 



Dodoneea viscosa. We noticed this under-shrub only 

 at the Society Islands, where it is called apiri. The 

 leaves are lanceolate, and covered with a viscid matter 

 of agreeable balsamic odour. The flowers are arranged 

 in panicles at the extremity of the branches; they 

 were invariably dioecious in the examples we obtained 

 at these islands, although Forster remarks, that the 

 species is hermaphrodite in New Zealand. 



This plant is the laurel of the Tahitian warriors : its 

 branches being selected to adorn the brows of those 

 who return victorious from war. 



2 C2 



