Chap. I] 



WATER 



29 



Gulf Stream from tlie West Indies. More recently the great importance of 

 marine currents in introducing plants to coasts and islands was proved 

 by investigations relating to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and carried on 

 Dy Hemsley, Treub, Guppy, and myself. I wrote on the spot the following 

 ;lcscription of the appearance of fruits and 

 eds thrown up by the sea at Tjilatjap, in 

 5outh Java : — 



f^] 



KiG. 34. Tcrmiiialia Catappa. 

 Drift-fruit. Natur.il size. 



' The broad sandj' shore is quite free from vegeta- 

 ion and nearly bare. Except for a few fruits recently 

 hrown up by the surf, together with shells and frag- 

 iients of pumice coming from the eruption of Krakatoa, 

 t is strewn onl}' witli the fruits of Spinifex squarrosus, 

 vhich are either bounding and rolling along urged by 

 he wind, or lie shortly clipped and half-buried in the 

 sand. Behind the shore, some low dunes stand up 

 iharply, and are overgrown with bluish Spinifex. At 

 he foot of these dunes lies the marine drift, carried 

 hither by the wind or by high tides, in the form of 

 ong sharply-defined strips, resembling heaps of dung, 

 in which many seeds have germinated. The drift 

 onsists chiefly of brown herbaceous or woodj' frag- 

 nents of various species, which, excepting the Spini- 

 £X, are difficult to idcntifj', of pieces of pumice, coral, 

 hells, and finally of fruits and seeds, which, wherever 



he drift-heaps are specially thick, have partly begun to germinate and cover them 

 vith a fresh green verdure. Many of those fruits and seeds come from plants that 

 ne might look for in vain in the neighbourhood ; some, at anj' rate, must have come 

 rem the neighbouring island of Noesa Kambangan, but I cannot decide whence 

 he others have come. 



' Many of the fruits look nearly as fresh as if they had just 

 alien from the tree, for instance those of Harrington ia 

 peciosa. Others bear traces of a long journey, and have 

 leen rubbed nearly out of all recognition ; their husks are 

 overed with Serpicula. or perforated like a sieve, or inhabited 

 y a colony of Cirripedes ; manj', such as Carapa and Cocos, 

 ave been hollowed out by animals. 



'The most numerous of all these fruits are those of Heritiera 

 ttoralis, and thej' arc very conspicuous on account of their 

 real size. Abundant likewise are the large fruits of Cerbera 

 )doIlam, quite stripped of their green husks and partiallj' of 

 leir parenchj-ma, and displaj-ing the bared tough fibrous 



oat surrounding the endocarp (here forming the floating tissue) which is almost 

 .■ater-tight. Further arresting the attention are coconuts covered only with the 

 emains of their fibrous husks, and usually with one side perforated by a round hole 

 irough which some unknown creature has eaten its fill of the seed that has almost 



Fig. 35. Calophyl- 

 lum InophyUum. .Stone 

 of fruit opened and 

 exhibiting the floating 

 tissue. Natural size. 



