VERNACULAR NAMES OF PLANTS. 153 



discovery. In most cases they are identical with the common name 

 applied to them in the regions from which they have been directly 

 obtained, or have been somewhat modified to correspond with the 

 genius of the language spoken by the natives of their new environment. 

 Of greater interest to the student of ethnology and of the origin of 

 cultivated plants is a comparison of the common names of plants dis- 

 seminated in prehistoric times throughout the entire range of their 

 cultivation. From such a comparison it has been possible to determine 

 the origin of a number of the more common food staples, such as 

 sugar cane, the coconut, the winged yam (Dioscorea alata), the common 

 names of which are etymologically identical from the eastern limits of 

 Polynesia throughout the islands of the Pacific, the Philippine Islands, 

 and the Malay Archipelago. Some names extend even to the continent 

 of Asia and to the island of Madagascar, on the edge of Africa. That 

 most of these plants have been spread through human agency is evi- 

 dent from the fact that they do not grow spontaneous!} 7 , but need the 

 help of man for their propagation. Some of them even, such as the 

 banana, plantain, breadfruit, sugar cane, yams, and taro, seldom pro- 

 duce seed and are propagated asexually by means of cuttings, off- 

 shoots, or tubers. 



In addition to garden products a number of trees bear the same or 

 similar names in many groups of islands, such as Barringtonia speciosa, 

 Intsia bijiiga, and Pariti tiliacewn^ all of economic value to the natives. 

 This is especially striking when we consider that some of these plants 

 have the same names on islands so remote that their inhabitants have 

 had no intercommunication within historic times. We have some light 

 upon the method by which the more important plants were spread in 

 the traditions of the Hawaiians, which tell of voyages to distant island 

 groups for the purpose of obtaining breadfruit and other useful plants. 



Some of the widely spread species bear one name throughout the 

 islands of eastern Polynesia, but are known by a different name in the 

 islands of the western Pacific and of the Maiay Archipelago. Among 

 these are the breadfruit, screw pine, kava pepper, taro, and ironwood 

 (Casuarina equiseti folia}. In a few cases a name is applied, not to the 

 same plant, but to a plant more or less similar. Thus the name " gabo " 

 is applied in the Philippines to the taro plant (Caladium colocasia)', in 

 Samoa, Rarotonga, Tahiti, Hawaii, and Easter Island to a species of 

 Alocasia (kape, or 'ape); and in the Caroline Islands to a yam (kap) 

 all plants having starchy, edible roots. The Philippine name for Alo- 

 casia (biga), which becomes "piga" in Guam, reappears in Fiji as 

 " via." The etymological identity of these words is undoubted, for the 

 changes which the consonants undergo follow the same law in many 

 other words. 



On the island of Guam several important plants were cultivated by 

 the aborigines which were unknown in eastern Polynesia such as rice, 



