58 



CHAPTER II. 



Flora. 



The Flora indigenous to Fiji, as far as known, 

 amounts to 1,086 species of flowering- plants, and 245 

 species of ferns and allied plants. Of these numbers 

 035 species (620 flowering plants and 15 ferns) have 

 as yet been met with only in Fiji. This number (635) 

 of endemic species, out of a total of 1,331 species of 

 ferns and flowering plants, is very large, and seems 

 strikingly peculiar. But this is, in a great measure, 

 owing to the fact that of all the Polynesian islands, 

 the Fiji group is the one which is botanically best 

 known. When botanists are better acquainted than 

 they are at present, with the Flora of the interior of 

 the Samoan, New Hebrides, and other Polynesian 

 islands, it will be found that many of the species, 

 which are now considered Fijian, have a wide distribu- 

 tion throughout Polynesia. Notwithstanding all that 

 has been done by the United States Exploring Expedi- 

 tion, Milne, Dr. Harvey, Dr. Seemann, and myself, to 

 make the flora of Fiji well known to Science, much 

 y<t remains to be done, and I regard the discovery of 

 new plants in the group as far from being exhausted. 



To the number of indigenous flowering plants 

 described in Seemann' s Flora Vitiensis, which included 

 all the plants 1 1 Kit had been discovered in Fiji up to 

 fche dale of its publication, 3 natural orders, 34 genera, 

 :iih1 :;(;:; species were addedby my visit. Of ferns and 

 allied plants, I discovered 15 new species, beside find- 

 ing in Fiji 20 other species, which had not previously 

 been Pound in Polynesia. Thanks to Mr. Baker, of 



