XVII 



CAESALPINIA 189 



compelled to admit this species in his scanty list of current- 

 dispersed plants (see Note 33). For more than two centuries it 

 has been known that the seeds of C. bonducella are carried in the 

 Gulf Stream drift to the coast of Europe from the American side 

 of the Atlantic ; and ever since they were recorded by Sloane in 

 1696 as stranded in a fresh condition on the beaches of the Orkney 

 Islands, they have been found washed up on other localities, as on 

 the coasts of Ireland and of Scandinavia and on the shores of the 

 islands of the Western Atlantic. According to Robert Brown, a 

 plant was raised from a seed cast up on the west coast of Ireland ; 

 and with respect to Scandinavia, Dr. Sernander informs us that 

 the seeds of Caesalpinia bonducella, like those of Entada scandens 

 and of Mucuna urens, are of frequent occurrence amongst the " Gulf 

 Stream products " stranded on the Norwegian coasts. The seeds 

 of this species are commonly washed ashore at St. Helena, and 

 there are specimens in the Kew Museum that were stranded on 

 Tristan da Cunha. (Those interested in the subject will find it 

 discussed by Mr. Hemsley in the Botany of the " Challenger" 

 Expedition, and also by Dr. Sernander in his recent work on 

 Scandinavia.) 



The seeds of Caesalpinia bonducella have been also found stranded 

 on beaches in other parts of the world. Thus Prof. Schimper found 

 them in the beach-drift of the south coast of Java. Prof. Penzig 

 noticed them amongst the stranded seeds of the Krakatoa beaches ; 

 but it does not appear that the plant had established itself up to 

 the date of his visit in 1897, or fourteen years after the great 

 eruption. They have been picked up on the other side of the 

 Indian Ocean on the east shores of Africa (Bot. Chall. Exped. iv, 300). 

 They came frequently under my notice stranded on the beaches of 

 Keeling Atoll in the same ocean ; and seedlings sprouting from 

 the seeds were sometimes to be seen growing amongst the drift 

 just above the high-tide level. The seeds of both C. bonducella 

 and C. bonduc have been found also on the shores of Jamaica. 

 Those of both species are not uncommon amongst the stranded 

 drift of the Fijian beaches ; but notwithstanding a careful search 

 I found only a solitary seed of C. bonducella in the Hawaiian 

 beach-drift, a circumstance explained below as arising from the 

 usual non-buoyancy of Hawaiian seeds. 



That the seeds of Caesalpinia bonducella stranded on the coasts 

 of an oceanic island are able to germinate and reproduce the plant 

 is, of course, established by the distribution of the species ; and we 

 have just observed that the process was noticed by the author on 



