XVII ENTATA SCANDENS 



177 



learn their history in the Pacific ; but a history, it may be observed, 

 that in this region represents their efforts to return to an inland 

 station, such as they once possessed in their birthplace in some 

 distant region of the globe. 



Dealing first with the station of Entada scandens, it may be 

 remarked, as Dr. Seemann points out, that in Fiji it is most 

 characteristic of the mangrove-formation. But it also occurs 

 amongst the trees at the back of the mangrove swamp, on the 

 beaches, on the banks of the estuaries, and at the edge of the 

 inland forests where they border on the plains. Sometimes in the 

 company of Derris uliginosa it grows not as a climber, but as a 

 prostrate plant on the sandy beaches ; and here, not being able to 

 assume its normal habit of a climber, it does not seed. It is to be 

 found at times far inland in open-wooded districts. Thus in Vanua 

 Levu I found it growing in the Mbua district four miles inland, and 

 J, 400 feet above the sea. Reinecke speaks of it in Samoa only in 

 connection with the " urwald," or primeval forest. Cheeseman 

 describes it as most abundant in the interior of Rarotonga, cover- 

 ing the trees with a wide-spreading canopy of green. In the 

 Malayan region Schimper refers to it as a plant of the beach-tree 

 formation. In Ecuador and on the Panama Isthmus it grows not 

 only at the coast, but also on the hill-slopes in the rear of the 

 mangrove-belt. 



With reference to the distribution of the plant, it may be 

 remarked that, although it is found all round the tropics and 

 possesses great capacity for dispersal by currents, there are certain 

 difficulties in explaining its wide area and in accounting for its 

 very peculiar distribution in the Pacific islands. It was doubtless 

 in allusion to some of these difficulties that Mr. Darwin, in a letter 

 to Sir Joseph Hooker, remarked : " Entada is a beast " {More 

 Letters, &c., i, 93). There is at first the question of the identity 

 of the species in the Old and New Worlds. It is here assumed 

 that it is the same in both hemispheres ; but it must not be 

 forgotten that the identity is " not beyond doubt " {Bot. Chall. 

 Exped. iv, 147). 



Then there is the difficulty connected with its occurrence on 

 both coasts of tropical America. In this respect it is at one 

 with some other littoral plants, like Ipomea pes caprae, as well as 

 with the plants of the mangrove formation, as is pointed out in 

 Chapter VIII. Whilst with the mangroves it is necessary to 

 i assume that they antedate the land connection between North and 

 South America, this is not requisite in the case of Entada scandens, 

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