394 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC chap. 



winds ; but they possess no buoyancy. Large bats probably aid in 

 their dispersal. The Fijians assert that these animals are in the 

 habit of visiting the trees for the sake of the honey furnished by 

 the conspicuous red flowers. When they see a bat flying towards 

 these trees, they are wont to remark that it is going to drink the 

 " se ni vota," that is, to suck the flowers of the Vota tree. It is 

 very likely that seeds would sometimes be carried in their fur for 

 considerable distances. 



Begonia 



Before the discovery of Hillebrandia, a new genus of the 

 Begoniaceae, in Hawaii, the order was not known from Polynesia. 

 However, in 1878 Mr. Home collected a species of Begonia in Fiji, 

 and it was probably this species that frequently came under my 

 notice in the rain-forests of the Vanua Levu mountains. In 1883 

 I collected a Begonia in the Solomon Islands, which I gave to 

 Baron F. von Mueller, who informed me that it was the first record 

 of the genus east of New Guinea, the description of Mr. Home's 

 Fijian plant apparently not having been published (see Guppy's 

 Solomon Islands, p. 288). It is not easy to explain why a genus 

 with such minute seeds, which are apparently as well fitted for 

 dispersal as those of the orchids, should have such a limited dis- 

 tribution in the Pacific. 



Dolicholobium (Rubiaceae) 



In the Index Kewensis this genus, containing five species, is 

 restricted to Fiji. It must, however, be more generally distributed 

 in the Western Pacific, since the genus was identified at Kew 

 among my Solomon Island collections, and it is recorded in the 

 list given in my book on that group (pages 283, 288, 297). 



The showy, large, white, fragrant flowers of these small trees 

 recall those of Lindenia, with which Dolicholobium is often 

 associated in Fiji by the sides of streams and rivers. As Home 

 observes, the Fijian Dolicholobiums range from the sea-shores and 

 the heads of the estuaries to the tops of the highest mountains. As 

 noticed by me in the Solomon Islands they affected the same 

 station, being especially common on the banks of streams. The 

 genus has a long, narrow capsule six inches or more in length. 

 The linear seeds, though very light, are an inch or more long, the 

 coats being drawn out into a long tail at either end, and thus 

 differing greatly from those of Lindenia, the other Rubiaceous 

 genus, with which these plants are so frequently associated at the 



