172 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC chap. 



African rain-forests ; and it is evident that this is the case. Pechuel- 

 Losche, as quoted by Schimper {^Plant-Geography , p. 299), describes 

 the rain-forest on the Loango coast as covering the mountain ranges 

 and as extending to the river-plains. In such a locaHty the opera- 

 tion would be rapid. In advancing this hypothesis I am referring 

 to the possibility, however, of such an operation having effected the 

 distribution of Afzelia in tropical Africa in the past rather than in 

 the present. I would suggest that botanists in other habitats of 

 the genus, as for instance in Queensland, might put it to the test 

 of observation and experiment. 



The interest that attaches itself to the story of the genus in its 

 African home may be extended to the species that forms its out- 

 post in the Pacific, and we shall see there a littoral species that 

 doubtless had its home in the interior of a continent endeavouring, 

 with a considerable measure of success, to become again an inland 

 plant. Home (p. 112), who was familiar with Afzelia bijuga at 

 the two extremes of its range, namely, in the Mascarene Islands 

 and in Fiji, speaks of it as characteristic of the shores of tropical 

 regions ; and Schimper, who includes it in the Indo-Malayan 

 strand-flora, implies that it is more or less exclusively confined to 

 the coast and its immediate vicinity (pages 121, 191-2). In the 

 Seychelles, according to Mr. Button, this tree attains gigantic 

 dimensions on the sandy flats. Still larger trees occur in the 

 coral islands of the Chagos Archipelago ; but in the atoll of 

 Diego Garcia, as we learn from Mr. Bourne, it is almost extinct 

 only some four or five trees existing there about twenty years 

 ago, the increase of the tree being prevented through the de- 

 struction of the fallen seeds by the rats {Journ. Linfi. Soc. Bot., 

 vol. 22, 1887). 



Afzelia bijuga may, therefore, be safely regarded as a littoral 

 tree. We shall now see the importance of this conclusion when 

 we come to consider its station in the Pacific islands, where it grows 

 both inland and at the coast, and we have to decide to which 

 station we must assign the priority. Speaking of its occurrence 

 in Fiji, Dr. Seemann says it is "common in the forests all over 

 Viti," but makes no allusion to it as a littoral tree either in Fiji 

 or elsewhere. On the other hand, Mr. Home (p. 112) describes it 

 as " generally growing on the shore or sandy beaches, and in 

 rocky clefts, and by the sides of streams in the interior of Viti , 

 Levu and Vanua Levu." It was on or near the coast in Fiji that 

 the present writer was most familiar with this tree, sometimes 

 bordering the sandy beach, at other times growing behind the 



