258 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC chap. 



since, with the exception of the solitary Lobelia sca^volifolia of St. 

 Helena, they seem rarely to be found. This species, which is 

 endemic, is a shrub growing on the upper slopes and summit of 

 the island at elevations of 2,000 to 2,700 feet (Introd. Bot. Chall. 

 Exped., p. 40, and Part ii. pp. 54, 76). 



There are two herbaceous species of Lobelia in Juan Fernandez, 

 of which one only, according to Hemsley, could be regarded as 

 indigenous. This is a showy Chilian and Peruvian species (Lobelia 

 tupa) noticed by Bertero as very common in 1829 (Bot. Chall. 

 Exped., Part Hi.). Since, however, it would belong to the present 

 age of plant-dispersal in the Pacific, it does not require further 

 mention here ; and indeed it would almost appear, when we bear 

 in mind the geographical position and the history of this island 

 since its discovery in 1563, that even as a truly indigenous plant it 

 is not above suspicion. Lobelias of this type are now amongst 

 the commonest plants of the coast regions of northern Chile, 

 where I noticed some as much as 9 or 10 feet high. 



On tJie Capacities of Dispersal of the Lobeliacece of the Pacific. 

 — Of actual observations, with the exception of the instance of birds 

 pecking at the capsules of our garden Lobelias, I have come upon 

 few that bear directly on this point. When writing of v the flora 

 of the Kermadec Group, many years ago, Sir Joseph Hooker 

 referred (Journ. Linn. Soc. Bot., vol. i.) to the minute seeds of 

 Lobelia as not adapted for transport unless their minuteness and 

 number fit them for it ; but since he associates in this connection 

 the tiny seeds of Metrosideros, which is now represented by a 

 species found all over the Pacific, it would seem that the difficulty 

 in the case of Lobelia is not connected so much with the nature as 

 with the suspension of these means of distribution during the later 

 stages of the plant-stocking of the oceanic islands of the tropical 

 Pacific. It will be gathered from the following remarks that the 

 descendants of the early Pacific Lobeliacece are probably as well 

 fitted for dispersal as their ancestors, and that the break in the 

 communication is the ultimate subject for inquiry. 



The fruits of the Hawaiian endemic genera are in four out of 

 five cases baccate, with usually fleshy or pulpy contents. Such 

 berries, which are generally yellow, but sometimes bluish in colour, 

 vary in size from about half an inch in Rollandia and Delissea to 

 an inch in Cyanea, and not infrequently to more than an inch in 

 Clermontia. The fruits of Lobelia and Brighamia are capsular 

 and dehiscent. With regard to the two genera of the Society 

 Islands and Rarotonga, the fruits of Sclerotheca are hard-walled 



