xxin THE HAWAIIAN MOUNTAIN-FLORA 285 



The genus Rhynchospora occurs alike in the Hawaiian, 

 Tahitian, and Fijian islands ; but the groups in the North and 

 South Pacific seem to have been independently supplied with the 

 original species, since R. aurea, a widely spread tropical species, 

 ranging the South Pacific from New Caledonia to Tahiti, has not 

 been recorded from Hawaii. A connection between Hawaii and 

 the Australian region seems to be indicated by a species of 

 Deyeuxia (D. forsteri) that is found also in Easter Island, 

 Australia, and New Zealand, and by the presence of the Australian 

 and New Zealand genus Cyathodes in Hawaii, though the 

 existence of a species common to both Tahiti and Hawaii goes to 

 show that the route followed by the genus lay through Eastern 

 Polynesia. It is also not unlikely that the genus Santalum reached 

 Hawaii through Eastern Polynesia, since two forms found in 

 Hawaii and Tahiti are closely allied, and are, in fact, regarded by 

 Drake del Castillo as the same species. The genus occurs in 

 tropical Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. 



Looking at the indications above given, I should be inclined to 

 think that the genera Lysimachia and Carex reached the Hawaiian 

 mountains from temperate Asia or the islands off its Pacific coast, 

 and that Cyathodes, Santalum, and Deyeuxia hail from the 

 Australian or New Zealand region by way of Eastern Polynesia. 



The Mountain Gejiera possessing no Endemic Species. — The 

 few remaining mountain plants of Hawaii to be considered are 

 solitary, widely ranging species of genera that here possess no 

 peculiar species. Such may be regarded as belonging to the latest 

 age of the indigenous plants. They still keep up, or kept up 

 until recently, the connection with the world outside Hawaii, and 

 among them one may name here Fragaria chilensis, Drosera 

 longifolia, Nertera depressa, and Luzula campestris. 



Fragaria chilensis, the Chilian strawberry, flourishes at eleva- 

 tions of between 4,000 and 6,000 feet on the Hawaiian mountains. 

 Its fruits, according to Hillebrand and other authors, are much 

 appreciated by the wild goose of the islands. This plant ranges 

 in America from Chile north to Alaska ; and Drake del Castillo is 

 doubtless on safe ground when he assumes that a congener of this 

 bird originally brought the species from the nearest part of the 

 American continent, namely from California (Rcmanjitcs, &c, p. 8). 

 In this connection it should be remembered that one of the 

 endemic mountain-raspberries of Hawaii (Rubus hawaiiensis) finds 

 its nearest relative, according to Gray, in Rubus spectabilis, a species 

 from the north-west coast of America. 



