i5 THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



and for the oil which can be extracted from its seed. Good 

 timber, the produce of this tree, is also very scarce. 



Next in order are damanu and vaivai (Calophyllum spectabile, 

 C. burmanni, Serianthes myradenia, and S. Titiensis), which yield 

 excellent durable timber fit for any purpose. Ddkua (Dammara 

 Fitiensis), besides yielding a timber which is better than any 

 kind of pine, and even more easily worked, gives a valuable 

 gum resin. The timber which the Dakw, salusalu, Kau solo, 

 Ko tabua, Lewininini and Kausia (all different species of Podo- 

 carpus) produce is as valuable as the best pine. The climate 

 and soil of Fiji would favour the growth of teak, sal, mahogany, 

 ebony, sisson, rosewood, gutta-percha, caoutchouc, ratans, etc. 

 in fact, any product of the tropical forests would succeed in 

 Fiji, and ought to be introduced and naturalised. 



Besides timber-yielding trees of more or less value peculiar 

 to the country, Fiji also possesses several trees which yield 

 caoutchouc of good quality. These, although by no means 

 scarce, are at present too far apart for the juice to be profitably 

 collected. But if brought together, as they would be in a forest 

 reserve, the juice could be easily collected at stated periods, 

 and made a mercantile commodity. 



The country abounds with plantains, of which the natives 

 distinguish about twenty-five sorts. According to Seeman, 

 the ' Soaqua,' a wild variety which grows in all the valleys, a 

 few hundred feet above the level of the sea, is the Musa trog- 

 lodytarum, the plant from which, says Sir John Bowring, in 

 his work on the Philippine Islands, Manilla hemp is obtained. 

 There is also a cultivated variety, named Vundi Vula, or white 

 plantain, which, I think, is the Mitsa textilis of botanists. 

 This variety yields a fine, bright, and strong Manilla hemp. 

 Samples sent to Sydney were valued at from 35 to 40 per 

 ton delivered there. The hemp is obtained from the stem or 



