xxv PRITCHARDIA 



327 



Whilst in Hawaii and Fiji I was much interested in these 

 palms, and the following remarks are merely intended to be a 

 contribution to the subject. According to Seemann, Hemsley, 

 Drake del Castillo, and Burkill, Pritchardia pacifica, which often 

 attains a height of thirty to thirty-five feet, occurs in Fiji, Tonga, 

 Samoa, and the Marquesas, but it does not exist in Tahiti, and 

 Cheeseman does not include it in the Rarotongan flora. Except 

 in the Tonga Group, where, according to Lister as quoted by 

 Hemsley, the palms form conspicuous objects along the weather 

 shore of the island of Eua, this species is rarely found in the wild 

 state in the South Pacific. This especially applies to Fiji, as 

 Mr. Home also observes ; and at most one is accustomed to see (to 

 employ the words of Dr. Seemann) one or two trees outside 

 a village which are reserved, as in many parts of Polynesia, for 

 the use of the chiefs who employ the leaves for fans and for other 

 purposes. But even this reason for preserving the palms scarcely 

 now exists in Fiji, and at the time of my sojourn in Vanua Levu 

 (1897-99) the trees were rare enough to be regarded as curiosities. 

 In the Marquesas, according to Bennett (quoted by Seemann), they 

 grow in groves in the valleys of the interior. Dr. Reinecke does 

 not even include the species in the Samoan flora, but mentions it 

 with the Date-Palm (Phoenix dactylifera) as if it were recently 

 introduced. It was, however, found in that group by the United 

 States Exploring Expedition about 1840, and this is evidently the 

 palm referred to by Captain Cook as existing at his time in 

 the Tongan Group. 



The Hawaiian species of the palm appear to be three in 

 number, Pritchardia gaudichaudii and P. martii, both regarded by 

 Hillebrand as confined to the group, and P. macrocarpa of Linden, 

 also endemic (Illustr. Hort. vol. 26). The two first-named species 

 are evidently on the road to extinction in the wild state, and often 

 find their last refuge on rocky, almost inaccessible, inland cliffs. 

 Pritchardia gaudichaudii, about twenty feet in height, is found in 

 the wild state, as we learn from Hillebrand, on the islands of 

 Molokai and Hawaii. It was at one time frequently met with near 

 native dwellings ; but during my sojourn in 1896-97 on the last- 

 named island it was not at all frequent, and as a rule only came 

 under my notice occasionally in clumps of three or four trees 

 on the Kona and Puna coasts, as near Kiholo, Milolii, and 

 Kalapana. However, it was more frequent in the Waimanu 

 district of Kohala in the same island. Here I noticed it growing 

 in clumps in precipitous rocky situations at elevations ranging 



