xxv FREYCINETIA 



3 X 9 



readily attract birds, and their minute roughened seeds scattered 

 through the pulp might readily adhere to their plumage or even be 

 ejected unharmed in their droppings. As respecting the capacity for 

 dispersal, the Pacific Cyrtandras come near the Hawaiian endemic 

 genera of Lobeliaceae with baccate fruits and minute seeds. Speak- 

 ing of Malayan genera of the tribe Cyrtandreae, Mr. Ridley says 

 that their dry, dull-coloured, and inconspicuous corky fruits are 

 often devoured by animals. The seeds, on account of their 

 roughened surface, adhere to rocks and other surfaces and readily 



germinate. 



FREYCINETIA (Pandanaceae). 



If there is any genus of tropical plants to which the student of 

 distribution can look for guidance in the region of the Pacific, it is 

 to Freycinetia as dealt with by Dr. Warburg in his monograph on 

 the order (Engler's Pflanzenreich, iv. 9, 1900). Its characters and 

 its distribution are well defined ; and here, if anywhere, we might 

 be able to work out the history of a genus. In the words of the 

 German botanist, it stands quite apart from Pandanus and Sara- 

 ranga, the two other genera of the order. When Hillebrand was 

 preparing his work on the Hawaiian flora, more than a quarter of a 

 century ago, only about thirty species were known. Warburg's 

 list, excluding doubtful forms, comprises sixty species, and even 

 this number the author surmises will be doubled in future years. 

 The later investigators, however, have not materially extended the 

 range of the genus ; and the statement of the botanists of a 

 generation ago, that it extends from Ceylon through Malaya 

 and Australia to New Zealand, and is found on almost every 

 elevated island of the Pacific, can only be supplemented by extend- 

 ing its area to the Asiatic mainland in Burma where a wide-ranging 

 Malayan species exists. 



It is, however, remarkable that no endemic species can be with 

 certainty accredited to the mainland of Asia either in Burma or in 

 the Malay peninsula where the genus also occurs. The Malayan 

 region from Java to the Philippines possesses quite three-fifths of 

 the species, and it is singular how few wide-ranging species there 

 are. The Philippine Islands, Borneo, Celebes, Sumatra, Java, New 

 Guinea, &c, have all their own species, the only wide-ranging plant 

 being Freycinetia angustifolia, which occupies the region from 

 Burma to Java and Borneo. So also in the Pacific, there is no 

 widely distributed species, every group possessing its own plant or 

 plants, and there does not appear to be any Freycinetia that is 



