xxiv THE FIJIAN MOUNTAIN FLORA 295 



&c, the total would be about sixty. Of these, about half are 

 restricted to New Zealand, which may be justly regarded as the 

 home of the genus, the rest being confined to Australia and the 

 islands of the Pacific, excepting a Chilian and three or four 

 Malayan species. Hawaii with its nine species, Tahiti with two, 

 Rarotonga with one, and Fiji with two or three species represent 

 approximately the distribution of the genus in the oceanic archi- 

 pelagoes of the tropical Pacific. (It most probably exists on the 

 high peaks of Samoa, though it has not yet been recorded from the 

 group.) In all, or in almost all cases, the species are restricted 

 to their particular groups, so that we may regard the dispersal of 

 the genus over the Pacific as suspended, though, as will be observed 

 below, the period of suspension in the South Pacific has not been 

 of sufficient duration to obliterate the affinities of species in distant 

 groups and to prevent us from tracing out the route followed by 

 the genus. 



This genus of temperate latitudes, which in its New Zealand 

 home ranges from near the sea-level to the region of the alpine 

 floras, finds its usual station in the tropics on the summits of moun- 

 tains. Thus, on Mount Kinabalu, in Borneo, it is found at altitudes 

 of 10,500 to 13,000 feet (Stapf), and on the mountains of East Java 

 at elevations exceeding 9,000 feet (Schimper). In Hawaii its 

 species grow at elevations ranging from 3,000 to 9,000 feet, and in 

 Tahiti at altitudes of 2,600 to 3,300 feet ; whilst in Rarotonga it 

 grows in the hilly parts of the island, its elevation in Fiji not being 

 recorded. 



When we come to consider the route by which the genus 

 (Coprosma) entered the tropical Pacific, we must remember that 

 unless we establish some special connection with its New Zealand 

 home it will always be open for any one to suggest that the genus 

 might have been derived, like Vaccinium, from other regions than 

 the south, as from the summits of the Malayan mountains. How- 

 ever, a curious connection has been discovered by Mr. Cheeseman 

 in his examination of the Kermadec and Rarotongan floras, and it 

 would indeed appear that he has traced the Rarotongan peculiar 

 species to its New Zealand home. Thus, he says that Coprosma 

 laevigata, his new Rarotongan species, is very closely allied to the 

 Kermadec endemic plant, C. acutifolia, Hook., which itself comes 

 near C. lucida, Forst, a New Zealand species. The connection 

 between Rarotonga and New Zealand by way of the Kermadec 

 group is rendered yet more probable by the occurrence of two 

 New Zealand species of Coprosma in the Kermadec flora {Jouru. 



